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* 







LETTERS ON 


BAPTISM 


BY v" 

REV. EDMUND B. FAIRFIELD, D.D. 

• i* 



BOSTON AND CHICAGO 

(fongrtgational Sunbag-jScIjooI anb publishing JSorutg 



Copyright, 1893, 

By Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing 
Society. 






/ 


PREFACE. 


T HE first of these letters tells how they 
came to be written. 

At the frequently expressed desire of the 
Christian friend to whom they were originally 
addressed, and also of others to whom most of 
them have been read, they are now given to the 
public. 

Although some changes have been made in 
them, — chiefly in the way of a fuller discussion 
of a few points,—yet the original form and style 
of them have been retained. It is thought that 
he for whom they were first written is a fair 
representative of a pretty large class of persons 
who are reexamining the foundation of their 
faith on this subject. 

Addressed, as they were, to a warm personal 
friend, for whom the writer entertains the 
highest Christian regard, it is hoped that 



2 


Preface. 


nothing will be found in them to stir up any 
unkind feelings on the part of any of the 
writer’s Baptist brethren, for whom he has 
only love and high esteem. 

These letters are not published in any sec¬ 
tarian spirit. The writer makes no objection 
to his Baptist brethren practicing only immer¬ 
sion. He would be glad if they, in like man¬ 
ner, made no objection to his practicing some¬ 
thing else. It is the purpose of what is here 
written to show that those who practice sprink¬ 
ling, or pouring, are entirely obedient to both 
the spirit and letter of the divine command. 

E. B. F. 


CONTENTS 


LETTER I. 

How these letters came to be written. — The 
author a Baptist for many years. — Was appointed 
to prepare a book in defense of Baptist views.— 
His reexamination of the subject resulted in a 
change of belief. — The reasons for the change here 
given. .. 


LETTER II. 

Main question stated. — Baptist version translates 
“ immerse.” — Worth while to discuss the question. 

— Any word of Christ worth considering. — Only 
the truth is of any value. — The Great Commission. 

— Four words of command in it.—General terms 
and those of specific mode distinguished. — Which 
is baptizo? — The question requires careful study. 

— Our conclusion stated. 

LETTER III. 

Its classical meaning does not settle the question. 

— New ideas require a modified sense of words to 
conform to them. — Many such changes in the Bible. 

— This fact illustrated by examples. — Experience 
of missionaries: obliged to “ convert the language, 
as well as the people.” — Change of baptizo from 

8 






4 


Contents. 


PAGE 

“immerse” to “cleanse ceremonially with water,” 
a natural one. — Bap to as an example. — Originally 
meaning to “ dip,” it came to mean to “ dye.” — 
Examples of this change given. — Dr. Carson 
admits this change.—Did baptizo actually undergo 
a similar change?. 24 

LETTER IV. 

The classical meaning of baptizo cannot be ac¬ 
cepted as the meaning of the word in the ordi- * 
nance of baptism. — Proof of this. — No water what¬ 
ever in the classic baptizo. — Admitted by Carson. 

— Examples demonstrate this. — Water is implied in 
the Bible use of baptizo. — Not in the connection, 

but in the word itself. — This the essential thing ... 32 

LETTER V. 

Careless way of defining by some lexicographers. 

— Appeal from dictionaries to actual usage.— 

What is the historic fact as to baptizo? — Appeal 
to the Septuagint. — Found three times in this Greek 
translation. — Never means to “immerse”; but 
always to cleanse ceremonially with water. — Proof 
submitted. — The cleansing once by immersion; 
twice by other methods. 46 

LETTER VI. 

Answer to objections. — “ Cleansed seven times ” 
an allowable form of speech.— Judith baptized her¬ 
self at a spring. — Case given in full. — Could not 
have been by immersion. — Dr. Carson’s “ horse- 
trough” scarcely explains it. — Cleansing from a 




Contents. 


PAGE 

dead body in Ecclesiasticus. — Must have been by 


sprinkling.—The proof of this is complete.—Yet 
it is called “baptism.”—This case enough to settle 
the question. — Josephus corroborates this. 62 


LETTER VII. 

Dr. Carson’s translation of the passage in Eoclesi- 
asticus shown to be thoroughly incorrect. — Even 
“ bathing ” was not by immersion. — Dr. Smith’s 
Classical Dictionary. — Representations of bathing 
on the ancient pottery. — Plutarch’s testimony. — 
Wilkinson’s Ancient Egyptians. — Testimony of 
travelers in the East. — Water poured on the hands. 

— The hands are never considered cleansed by dip¬ 
ping them into the water. 83 

LETTER VIII. 

The importance of this argument from the Septu- 
agint. — Does the New Testament usage correspond 
to this? — This to be presumed, but not to be left 
there. — The proof submitted. — The “ divers bap¬ 
tisms” of the Epistle to the Hebrews.—Not one 
immersion! — A straggling blow to Baptist preju¬ 
dices.— Mark 7 .-2-4. Baptizing after visiting the 
market; could not have been immersion. — Washing 
“with the fist.” — Present Oriental custom. — Use 
of washbowl and pitcher in the East. — Baptism of 
tables and couches. — Baptizing before eating. — 
Manner of Jews’ purifying. — John’s baptism. — 
Force of Apostolic example. — The law of baptism 
alone must settle the question. — Baptism “ in the 
Jordan.” — Coming “out of” the water. 96 





6 


Contents . 


LETTER IX. 

PAGE 

Baptism “ in ” water; or “ with ” water — which? 

— If “ with ” water, then not by immersion. — 

“John, the Baptist,” not “John the Immerser,” 
but “ John the Purifier.” — Malachi’s prophecies of 
the Forerunner. — Baptizing in ^Enon. — Question 
about “ purifying.” — Baptizing and purifying syn¬ 
onymous. — Why “ much water ” ? — Many foun¬ 
tains. — These necessary for something else besides 
the ordinance of Baptism.—How John probably 
baptized. 123 

LETTER X. 

Baptism of three thousand on the day of Pente¬ 
cost.— No body of water at Jerusalem, except for the 
water supply of the city. — These not accessible for 
immersion. — The “ brook Kedron ” a little rill.— 
Baptism a ceremony of cleansing and consecration to 
a holy use. — Formula of baptism. — “ All baptized 
unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.” —No ref¬ 
erence to any mode of baptism. — Analogy between 
baptism and circumcision. — One system of reli¬ 
gious faith from Abraham to Christ.—Two ordi¬ 
nances in the Old Dispensation. — Two in the New. 

— Both have the common signification of symboliz¬ 
ing the great doctrines of Pardon and Purity. 138 

LETTER XI. 

Question about eis and ek answered. — Force 
of apostolic example. — Was the eunuch immersed? 

— Not proved by the going down “to” the water, 
nor by their going down “into” it. — Did Christ 




Contents . 


PAG* 

come “out of” the water,,or “from” the water? 

— Only the word of the command can settle the 
main question . 150 

LETTER XII. 

Luke 12: 50, and Doddridge’s paraphrase of it. — 

The figurative sense of the classical baptizo always 
bad. — A secondary meaning does not set aside the 
primary. — Illustrations from bapto and from 
pneuma. — The secondary sense not the same 
thing as the figurative. — John 3:5: “ born of 
water.” — No reference to baptism whatever, but 
only to natural birth. — Proof of this. — On$ two 
births spoken of; not three. — “Baptized for the 
dead.” — Gives no support to immersion. 166 

LETTER XIII. 

Old Testament quoted to show what “ born of 
the water ” means. — No baptismal regeneration.— 
Baptism not declared to be essential to salvation. — 

“ Buried with him by baptism into death ” — refers 
to the import of baptism, not to the mode of it. — 
Burial, death, resurrection, crucified, planted, etc., 
all used figuratively. — The Baptist appeal to these 
words assumes that the word “ burial ” is literal and 
so means immersion. — Argument of the apostle 
stated. — Question answered in regard to the Greek 
preposition en. — Two hundred and eighty times 
translated “with,” “by,” and “through”.. 181 

LETTER XIV. 

Baptism a cleansing indicated by language ad¬ 
dressed to Paul: Acts 22:16. —Does not symbolize 





8 


Contents . 


FAGE 

death and resurrection. — Baptism with the Holy 
Spirit a cleansing. — Baptism of the disciples in 
wind and fire, says Carson.—Then in the “ap¬ 
pearance of wind and fire ! ” — There was no wind; 
but only a sound, as of a wind. — Were they bap¬ 
tized in the sound?— i Peter 3: 20, 21 explained.— 

The ark not spoken of as a type of baptism.— 
Argument based upon “ the localities where baptism 
was performed ” considered. — Some localities very 
unfavorable to baptism; immersion not proved by 
any of them.—The jailer’s baptism. — Baptism of 
Cornelius^-Lydia and her household.—Views taken 
by “The Christian Fathers.”—Justin Martyr calls 
baptism a cleansing. — Hippolytus speaks of the 
“ cleansing of the holy baptism.” — Cyprian recog¬ 
nizes one who was sprinkled as having been once 
baptized. — Quotes: “ Then will I sprinkle clean 
water upon you, and ye shall be clean,” in support 
of that view. — Athanasius discourses of three bap¬ 
tisms which cleanse the soul — the baptism of water, 
that of one’s tears, that of one’s own blood.— 
These were not immersions. — Chrysostom, Basil, 
Cyril, John of Damascus, and Theophylact speak 
in a similar way. —Those who prefer immersion 
do it because it represents — not death and burial, 
but cleansing. . 193 


LETTER XV. 

In none of these Fathers do we find that “im¬ 
mersion ” is a satisfactory rendering of baptismois. 
— The Latin Fathers transferred the word bap • 
iismois instead of translating by their own word tm- 



Contents . 


9 


PAGE 

mersio. The view of baptism presented in these 
letters best harmonizes with the general spirit of our 
Christian ‘faith. — Burdensome outward ceremonies 
out of place.—Often immersion is impracticable; 
instances given from the experience of Baptist 
ministers. — Baptism should be an ordinance for 
every climate and every season and every candi¬ 
date. — A little bread may symbolize the full strength 
of God. — The one sprinkled with the water of sep¬ 
aration was touched by it in only a few spots; but 
he was thoroughly cleansed — “ he was not cleansed 
in spots.” — Summing up of the argument. — 
Severe trial attendant upon change of pleasant 
church relations; but with a change of belief 
honesty and good fellowship both require it.223 






BAPTISM 


LETTER I. 

Y DEAR FRIEND, — Your let- 
ter is before me, in which you 
say : “For many years you and I 
have been of the same belief on the sub¬ 
ject of baptism ; I now learn that you have 
changed your views and your church rela¬ 
tion. I doubt not that you have what 
seem to you to be good and sufficient 
reasons for this change, and as it is my 
sincere and honest desire to find the exact 
truth on all matters of Christian doctrine 
and duty, I wish you could find time to 
give me a full statement of those reasons.” 

To this request I am happy to respond; 
but you will not expect me to be able to 









12 


Baptism. 


do it in a few lines. It is a subject upon 
which I have spent many months of 
study; it will require several letters to 
set forth the reasons for giving up opin¬ 
ions which I had long held. If you have 
the patience to read all that I am willing 
to write, I feel sure that you will not only 
give me credit for honesty in my present 
position, but for having good and ample 
grounds for disavowing my former belief. 
I think you will see, indeed, that I could 
not honestly have done anything else. 

You know, perhaps, that I have been a 
Baptist for more than a quarter of a cen¬ 
tury ; and no man was more certain of 
being right. I had not a doubt on the 
subject. 

How this change came about may be 
told in a few words. Sqme years ago, I 
was requested by a Baptist publishing 
house 1 to prepare a book in defense of 
Baptist views. They proposed a volume 

1 Free Baptist Printing Establishment, now on Shawmut Ave., Boston. 


Baptism. 


13 


of about four hundred duodecimo pages. 
I accepted this appointment with the full¬ 
est assurance that an argument could be 
made in that compass that nobody could 
fairly answer. In order to do it I deter¬ 
mined to go over the whole ground from 
the beginning; so that when the work 
was finished the honest and intelligent 
reader of my book would be constrained 
to admit that it was unassailable. 

I fully believed that immersion was the 
only water baptism, and that it could be 
made so to appear to every candid in¬ 
quirer. 

My disappointment you can imagine 
when I tell you that, as I prosecuted my 
study of the subject, I found tower after 
tower of my Baptist fort tumbling down ! 
Most laboriously did I strive to repair 
them. Month after month for more than 
two years did I labor to maintain my old 
ground, but to no avail. There were too 


4 


Baptism . 


many hard and solid facts against me. 
Having studied the subject through and 
through on both sides, I was convinced 
of my error. Immersion was not the 
only baptism. The word baptizo did not 
mean “immerse” in the New Testament. 
I saw it clearly. I could not have been 
an honest man, and continue to profess 
to believe what I did not believe. I had 
believed it with strong conviction, and I 
do not for one moment question the hon¬ 
esty of my Baptist brethren. They are as 
sincere in their convictions as I formerly 
was in mine. But with the facts now 
before me it was impossible for me to 
remain a minister of the gospel in any 
Baptist denomination. 

With your patience, I will set before 
you, as you request, my present views, 
and the reasons for them. You of 
course must weigh the evidence for your^ 
self, and reach your own conclusions. 


Baptism . 


15 


LETTER II. 



COME at once to the main ques¬ 
tion : “ What does the word 
baptize mean ? ” 

The Baptist version substitutes the 
word “ immerse ” wherever it occurs : and 
that translation expresses the Baptist 
idea. If it expresses the mind of the 
Spirit, then it ought to be so translated. 
I used to think that it did: I am very 
certain now that it does not. The trans¬ 
lators of our English Bible were wise in 
transferring the word ; because, as I will 
show you, we had no one word in the 
English language to express the idea 
intended. 

But what is the idea intended to be 
conveyed ? This is the question at issue. 
And it is of no use to say that “ as it is a 
mere matter of outward ceremony, it is 
not worth disputing about.” Certainly it 





16 Baptism . 

is not worth while to cherish a disputa¬ 
tious spirit about anything: but if it were 
worth while for our Lord and Master to 
establish such an ordinance at all, it is 
worth our while to try to find out what 
he meant by it. Whatever Christ com¬ 
mands, be it something little or great, it is 
certainly worth our while to try to under¬ 
stand it, so that we may obey it. 

So long as there is an honest and wide 
divergence of views among Christian 
people — so long as one of the largest 
Protestant denominations separate them¬ 
selves from their brethren, on this ground 
alone — it is worth our while trying to find 
some method of removing the misunder¬ 
standing. 

If our Baptist brethren are right in 
maintaining that baptism is immersion, 
and nothing else, then the rest of us are 
wrong. If we are right, they are wrong. 
And I assume that we all alike desire to 


Baptism. 


17 


be right in our understanding of just what 
Christ requires. In your letter to me you 
say: “ I want to find the truth: nothing 
else will do anybody any good.” I be¬ 
lieve you, and agree with you. Again 
you say: “ I have learned some things 
every year; I am not beyond learning 
more.” This, is certainly the only proper 
ground for any Christian to stand upon. 

Now the question at issue between us 
turns, and must turn, mainly, if not en¬ 
tirely, upon the meaning of the word itself 
which is used in the Great Commission. 
That Commission I do not need to quote 
to you; but it is worth the time that I 
take to write it, and that it will take you 
to read it, to have it distinctly before us. 
Here it is: “ Go ye therefore, and make 
disciples of all the nations, baptizing them 
into the name of the Father, the Son, and 
the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe 
all things whatsoever I have commanded 
you ” (Matt. 28:19, 20). 


8 


Baptism . 


If the word “baptizing,” found in this 
Commission, was understood by Christ to 
mean “ immersing,” then the minister of 
the gospel cannot execute it by sprink¬ 
ling. If the word means “ sprinkling,” 
then it could not be fulfilled by immersing. 
But suppose now it should be found that 
this word “baptizing” conveys the general 
idea of “ceremonial cleansing, or ritual 
purification, by water,” then possibly the 
requirement may be fully met by either 
immersion, pouring, or sprinkling. In 
that case, the Baptist theory falls to the 
ground. If it is a word of particular 
mode, then that particular mode alone can 
satisfy the command. If, on the other 
hand, it is a term of general import, then 
the question of mode does not enter into 
the substance of the command at all; and 
it is left to the administrator, or the per¬ 
son to be baptized, to choose the particu¬ 
lar mode according to his best judgment. 


Baptism. 


J 9 


To make my meaning clear to every 
one, let me illustrate from the Commission 
itself. Here are four words ’of command : 
(i) “ Go ” ; (2) “ Disciple,” or “ Make dis¬ 
ciples of ” ; (3) “ Baptize ” ; (4) “ Teach.” 

Take the first. “ Go ” is evidently a 
word of general import ; not a word of 
particular mode. If a commanding officer 
in giving orders to a soldier bids him 
“walk” to a certain place, for the soldier 
to “ ride ” would not be obedience. If he 
orders him to “go on horseback,” making 
the trip in a carriage would not be compli¬ 
ance. But if he commands him simply 
to “ go,” the soldier is at liberty to 
consult his own judgment as to the most 
fitting method of accomplishing the dis¬ 
tance, unless there is something else to 
indicate the manner of his going; as, 
for example, there might be a general 
standing order that all soldiers of a cer¬ 
tain class should uniformly go in a certain 
way. 


20 


Baptism. 


Take the second : “ Disciple,” or “ Make 
disciples of.” I quote the new version, 
because in the old version two entirely 
different words in the Greek are trans¬ 
lated by the same word “ teach.” The 
new version translates the former as above 
— “ Make disciples of.” It might have 
used the word “ evangelize,” transferring 
the Greek word, and expressing the same 
idea. Either of these forms of expres¬ 
sion is of general import. In obedience 
to the command, the Christian Church 
may send out preachers, establish colleges, 
organize Sunday-schools, instruct the 
young, build houses of worship, preach 
in the marketplace, visit from house to 
house, sing gospel hymns, or do anything 
else that may be adapted to accomplish 
the work of converting the world. They 
are not limited to any particular mode of 
operation in evangelizing the nations. 

Take the fourth: “Teaching.” This 


Baptism . 


21 


too is a word of general import. In car¬ 
rying out the commission to teach the 
people to observe all the things com¬ 
manded, we may do it orally or we may 
do it by the printed page. We may circu¬ 
late Bibles or publish tracts or send out 
religious books or Christian newspapers. 
We may teach them privately or publicly, 
in any and every way as may seem best. 

Of the four words of command in this 
Great Commission three are general. 
The missionary may go into all the world 
as best he can — on a sailing vessel, on 
a steamship, on railroad cars, by stage 
coach, horseback, or on foot, as seems to 
him good; and he may adopt the means 
that shall seem best to him for discipling 
and instructing the nations (unless else¬ 
where forbidden) because the words are 
broad enough to cover them all. 

The third word of command in this 
Commission is “ baptize.” Is this also a 


22 Baptism. 

word of general import ? or is it one of 
specific mode ? 

This is the question before us ; and 
it is one to be settled, not by prejudice, 
but by sound judgment. That the other 
three words are of general signification 
weighs nothing, of course, to prove that 
this is. I have only taken these others as 
illustrations to bring the issue clearly 
before us. Whether this third word of 
command is one of general import or of 
specific mode is to be settled by careful, 
candid, and thorough examination. I used 
to think that it was the latter. After 
most laborious research, in spite of the 
beliefs of twenty-five years to combat, I 
am sure that it is not. 

It neither means to immerse nor to 
sprinkle nor to pour upon. It conveys in 
its ritual use the general idea of cere¬ 
monial purification by water — includ¬ 
ing all these methods, but limited to none 


Baptism. 


23 


of them. No one English word expresses 
it; and it was, therefore, wise and neces¬ 
sary to transfer the word from the Greek 
to the English. You have told me that 
you were “ not a Greek scholar, knowing 
little more than the Greek alphabet; ” 
and have requested that in these letters I 
should spell out in English characters the 
Greek words which it might be necessary 
or convenient to introduce. This I shall be 
happy to do. I begin with the word bap- 
tizein — to baptize. You notice that our 
English spelling of the infinitive simply 
drops the last two letters of the Greek. 
Were you to look for the word in a Greek 
lexicon you would find it given baptizo — 
I baptize. Maybe, before my next letter, 
you may interest yourself in looking it up. 


LETTER III. 



SEE that you have adopted my 
suggestion, and so in your last 
letter you say: “ I find that the 
word baptizo is defined as meaning in 
classic Greek, ‘Dip, plunge, immerse,’ 
etc. If so, how can you be justified in 
your interpretation of what it means in 
the New Testament?” 

I proceed at once to answer. Even 
admitting that the Greek lexicon which 
you have consulted defines correctly the 
classic usage of baptizo (that is a ques¬ 
tion which I will consider hereafter), this 
does not by any means settle the other 
question as to its usage in the New Testa¬ 
ment. Very many words employed in the 
Greek Testament are used in a sense very 
much modified from that which they bear 






Baptism . 


25 


in classic Greek. This you will readily 
see must be so from the necessities of the 
case. Words are the signs of ideas : and 
when you wish to convey to anyone a new 
idea, for which his own language has no 
word exactly fitted, you are obliged to 
invent an entirely new word, or to use 
such words as his language affords, in a 
modified sense. Hence it will be found 
that there is not a distinctively Christian 
conception in the New Testament which 
does not need to give expression to itself 
through some word of classic Greek more 
or less changed from its classic meaning. 
Theos (God), Christos (Christ), meta 7 ioia 
(repentance), agape (love), elpis (hope), 
pistis (faith), hamartia (sin), sarx (flesh), 
onranos (heaven) — how different are the 
ideas conveyed by these words to the Chris¬ 
tian reader of the New Testament from 
any which they ever conveyed to the readers 
of Homer, Xenophon, or Thucydides! 


26 


Baptism . 


Deipnon (supper) expressed to the 
mitid of Plato a very different thought 
from that which Paul had when he spoke 
of the Lord’s Supper. To the Greek this 
word was the name for “ the full meal of 
the day,” whenever taken. . Who knows 
but that the Corinthians made this mis¬ 
take of assuming that the word was used 
in its classic sense, and so fell to eating 
and drinking,—almost to surfeiting,— 
until Paul found it necessary to rebuke 
them, and to explain to them the nature 
of the ordinance ? (See i Cor. 11 : 20-30.) 

The classic meaning of no word is an 
absolute guide to its signification in the 
New Testament. Whenever any distinc¬ 
tively Christian or ecclesiastic idea is to 
be expressed, the Greek word will be found 
used in a modified sense. 

The experience of all modern mission¬ 
aries to heathen lands illustrates the same 
law. Before they can preach to the people 


Baptism. 


2 7 


in their native tongue they find it neces¬ 
sary to explain to them that the words 
employed are used in a different sense 
from that to which they have been accus¬ 
tomed. So, also, in translating the Scrip¬ 
tures. As one of the ablest of our Amer¬ 
ican missionaries said to me a few years 
ago: “ The language of all these nations 
needs to be converted as much as the 
people.” 

If, then, we admit, for the sake of argu¬ 
ment, that baptizo in the Greek always 
means immerse, it still remains an open 
question whether its religious sense is the 
same or not. 

Suppose it were necessary to employ 
some word to express the idea of “ cere¬ 
monious religious cleansing in the use of 
water,” and no word was found in classic 
Greek exactly expressing that idea, what 
is to be done? Just what was done in 
numberless other cases : some word must 

BE CONVERTED TO THAT USE. 


28 


Baptism. 


Would it not be entirely in harmony 
with well-known laws of language to seize 
upon baptizo for that purpose ? 

Here is a word meaning to immerse, 
to envelop. One of the methods of 
cleaning is by immersing in pure water. 
This word is therefore laid hold upon to 
express the general idea of ceremo¬ 
nial cleansing with water. Certainly 
in this there would be no violence done to 
the well-known laws of human speech. 
For exactly that sort of thing was done, 
long before the times of Christ, in the 
case of another Greek verb closely related 
to baptizo. I refer to bapto. This word 
originally meant to dip, or immerse, some¬ 
what the same as baptizo , as the diction¬ 
aries represent it. But as dipping or 
immersion was one method of coloring, or 
dyeing, it came to be used to mean color, 
or dye, without any reference to mode 
whatever. 


Baptism . 


29 


I know this point has been disputed by 
Alexander Campbell and some other zeal¬ 
ous immersionists. But the facts are so 
palpable as to compel the ablest of all the 
Baptist writers — Dr. Alexander Carson — 
to yield it entirely ; and so he says : “ Al¬ 
though this meaning arose from dyeing 
by dipping, yet the word has come by 
appropriation to denote dyeing without 
reference to mode. . . . Nothing in the 
history of words is more common than to 
enlarge or diminish their signification. 
In this way bapto , from signifying mere 
mode, came to be applied to a cer¬ 
tain operation, usually performed in that 
mode. From signifying to dip, it came to 
signify to dye by dipping, and afterwards 
to denote dyeing in any manner. A like 
process might be shown in the history of 
a thousand other words.” 1 

1 Carson on Baptism : edition of American Baptist Publication 
Society, p. 44. 


30 


Baptism. 


The examples in which this meaning 
occurs are such as fully to justify the con¬ 
clusion to which Dr. Carson comes. 

Thus Hippocrates, speaking of a color-^ 
ing fluid, says : “ When it drops upon the 
garments, they are dyed.” 

So Nearchus relates that the Indians 
dye their beards; and yElian speaks of an 
old coxcomb who attempted to conceal 
his age by dyeing his hair. 

^Eschylus speaks of a garment dyed by 
the sword of Higisthus. 

Homer, in the battle of the frogs and mice, 
relates that Crombophagus —so Cowper 
names this warrior — “fell and breathed no 
more, and the lake was dyed with blood.” 

Alexander Campbell, Dr. Gale, of Eng¬ 
land, and other Baptist writers even here 
insist that the lake was “ dipped by hyper¬ 
bole.” “ The literal sense is,” says Dr. 
Gale, “the lake was dipped in blood.” 
To which Dr. Carson replies: “ Never 


% 

Baptism . 31 

was such a figure. . . . What a monstrous 
paradox in rhetoric is the figure of the 
dipping of a lake in the blood of a 
mouse ! . . . The lake is said to be dyed, 
not dipped nor poured nor sprinkled. 
There is in the word no reference to mode?- 
What now would be more natural than 
that baptizo , meaning originally to im¬ 
merse, should come to be used in a second¬ 
ary sense to convey the idea of cleansing, 
or purifying without reference to mode ? 

Of course this argument does not 
prove that as a matter of fact it did 
undergo any transition of that sort. That 
proof is to be submitted hereafter. For 
the present I am only endeavoring to 
show that such a change would do no 
violence to the laws of language. In the 
words of Dr. Carson, already quoted: “ A 
like process might be shown in the history 
of a thousand other words.” 


ilbid. p. 48. 


$ 


LETTER IV. 

TRUST I have made it plain in 
my last letter that such a modifi¬ 
cation of meaning as I claim in 
the case of baptizo would not have been 
unnatural or improbable, but altogether in 
harmony with the well-known laws of 
human speech. 

Before coming to the positive proof that 
just such a change did actually occur, I 
wish to show you beyond all question that 
the exigencies of every passage of Scrip¬ 
ture in which baptism is commanded 
absolutely require some modification of the 
classical meaning, as it is held to be by 
all Baptist authorities. This can be made 
entirely clear from the Baptist translation 
itself. Take the Commission as it reads 
in the version published by the Baptist 

32 







Baptism. 


33 


Union : “ Go, therefore, and disciple all 
the nations, immersing them in the name 
of the Father, of the Son, and of the 
Holy Spirit.” 

Or take the answer which Peter is 
represented to have made on the day of 
Pentecost to those inquiring what they 
should do to be saved : “ Repent, and be 
each of you immersed.” 

Suppose the inquirer had said: “ Im¬ 
merse ? into what ? ” 

Does the classic baptizo answer this 
question ? Not at all! Whether the im¬ 
mersion is to be in salt water or fresh, in 
running water or still, in clean water, or 
oil, or vinegar, or into filth, there is noth¬ 
ing in the English word immerse, and there 
is nothing in the classic baptizo , to decide 
or even to suggest. What the effect of the 
immersion is to be, whether to render clean 
or unclean, there is absolutely nothing in 
the classic baptizo to indicate. 


34 


Baptism . 


I have before me a volume published 
by the American Bible Union (Baptist) 
for the purpose of vindicating their trans¬ 
lation of baptizo by “ immerse ” ; a volume 
in which they profess to give all the pas¬ 
sages in Greek literature in which the 
word occurs; and so far as I know it is 
complete and exact. 

Now what do I find in the examination 
of these passages, numbering in all a little 
more than one hundred and fifty ? I find 
that twenty times it was used of a ship 
that was going to the bottom of the sea; 
eighteen times of one sinking or drowned 
as the result of his immersion ; nineteen 
times of dipping into oil; six times of 
plunging something, as a sword, into the 
human body ; of land overflowed by water 
twice ; of the difficulty of sinking things 
into very salt water, four times; of 
dipping into milk, vinegar, wine, honey, 
wax, fire, ointment, etc., twenty times. 


Baptism. 


35 


Besides these, about seventy examples 
are given of its figurative use of being 
sunken, or overwhelmed in cares, debts, 
ignorance, sleep, passion, drunkenness, 
taxes, crimes, vices, sorrows, afflictions, 
calamities, punishments, difficulties, etc.; 
every time in a bad sense. 

Now, as these are all the examples of 
the word baptizo which these learned gen¬ 
tlemen of the Baptist Union have been able 
to find in all the classic Greek literature 
which has come down to our day, they 
may reasonably be presumed to represent 
pretty fairly the general usage of the 
classic Greek. At all events, they are the 
sole basis upon which the dictionaries of 
the Greek language have been made. 

Do any of these illustrate the usage of 
the word as found in the Greek Testa¬ 
ment, in connection with the ordinance of 
baptism ? Do they give any hint of the 
spiritual significance of the Christian rite ? 


36 


Baptism. 


Do they suggest clearly any answer to the 
question, “Into what must this immersion 
which the Baptist translation commands 
take place ? ” 

Nothing is said in the Great Commis¬ 
sion about water — nothing, according to 
their translation, is implied. The classic 
usage of baptizo does not imply water. 
As Dr. Carson himself is clear-headed 
enough to see, and candid enough to say : 
“ The idea of water is not in the word at 
all.” Yet the word itself is all that 

IS FOUND IN THE GREAT COMMISSION ! 

The word itself is all that is found in 
Peter’s answer on the day of Pentecost. 

Every minister of Christ is commanded 
(according to this Baptist translation) to 
“ immerse ” disciples. And for one I am 
entirely willing to admit that we probably 
have no one word that better translates 
the classic baptizo than the word immerse. 
Not that the act of immersion is expressed 


Baptism. 


37 


by it, so much as the condition of being 
surrounded by anything, whether liquid or 
solid. But not having any one word to 
express its classic meaning any better than 
immerse, with this general explanation, I 
am willing to admit that the Baptist trans¬ 
lation is a good translation of the classic 
word baptizo. But what I maintain is 
that the classic baptizo does not at all 
meet the demands of the Christian ordi¬ 
nance ; nor does the translation of the 
Baptist Union ; for the very reason which 
Dr. Carson has acknowledged, that there 
is no water at all in the word itself. The 
thing into which the immersion is to take 
place must, in classic usage, be expressed; 
for the word does not imply it. 

I want to make this so plain that there 
can be no possible questioning it. Sup¬ 
pose a Grecian gentleman in the days of 
Plato, for example, had called one of his 
servants, and telling him that he would 


38 


Baptism. 


find a piece of cloth in a certain place, 
had simply bidden him immerse it (using 
the word baptizo in its proper mood, tense, 
number, and person), would the servant 
have known anything about what he was 
to do with it ? 

Had that servant been familiar with 
every passage in Greek literature now 
known to us, he would have been in utter 
ignorance of the thing required; and he 
would have waited for the finishing of his 
master’s sentence; and unless the master 
had intended to mock the servant, he would 
have proceeded to finish the sentence 
without delay. For without something 
further the servant could not have known 
whether the cloth was to be immersed in 
fresh water or salt; in warm water or cold ; 
in honey or oil; in vinegar or wine; in 
ointment or milk. “ There is no water in 
the word at all ” is a true saying when the 
remark is confined to the classic usage . 


Baptism. 


39 


Pressed by this logic, which years ago 
I found clinging to me, I said to myself : 
“Very well; the disciple must be im¬ 
mersed in something; the command does 
not say what. Water is ordinarily the 
most convenient thing; and as nothing is 
said about it, I am at liberty to choose. 
But these disciples must be buried in 
something; and if I were in a desert with 
plenty of sand and little water I would 
bury them in the sand, covering the face 
last of all, and uncovering it again as 
promptly as possible ; so that they should 
always be able to understand that passage 
— “ buried with him by baptism ” ; and 
that other that speaks about being 
“ planted together in the likeness of his 
death.” And I found various other Bap¬ 
tist ministers who occupied the same 
ground. 

I cannot now see the fallacy of my 
argument, assuming that the classic bap - 


40 


Baptism. 


tizo must determine for me the meaning 
of the command. Or, if we take the sig¬ 
nificance of the ordinance, as almost all 
Baptist writers insist upon giving it to us, 

— Campbell, Carson, Ripley, Hinton, and 
others, — that the ordinance was intended 
to represent Christ’s burial and resurrec¬ 
tion, and to be a symbolic pledge of our 
own resurrection after death, then the 
person must go under and come out again. 
And something else besides water might 
answer for that. 

I could not, however, stand very firmly 
in this conclusion when I had reached it; 
for I found too many allusions to baptism 

— such as, “ having your bodies washed 
with pure water” — to rest in the result 
to which I had come, that there was no 
water necessary to Christian baptism. 
There is none in the classic baptizo — that 
is plain. 

If it be said that we find the water 


Baptism. 


41 


not in the word, but in the history and 
incidental allusions, I reply that this 
would answer, if the water were merely 
an unimportant incident. But here is a 
prominent command, with the most im¬ 
portant part of it omitted from the law 
itself, and left merely to inference. I 
know of no other case in which such a 
thing has been done. If it is done here, 
it is an anomaly. 

We have no instance-in the Bible in 
which the word immerse is used. So I 
cannot illustrate by that particular term. 
But the word “dip ” we have; and this is 
preferred by some of the Baptist writers 
as the equivalent term of baptizo ; and we 
can see by reference to the cases in which 
it is used how entirely essential it is to 
make mention of that into which the dip¬ 
ping is to take place. 

For example, we are told in Genesis 
37:31 that Joseph’s brethren dipped his 


42 Baptism . 

coat in the blood of a kid. Elsewhere we 
are informed that Aaron dipped his finger 
in the blood of the calf, and put it upon 
the horns of the altar. Of Asher it is 
said, “ Let him dip his foot in oil.” The 
feet of the priests were dipped in the 
brim of the water. Jonathan put forth 
the end of the rod that was in his hand 
and dipped it in a honeycomb. Of about 
twenty instances in the Bible in which the 
word “ dip ” is used, only three of them 
refer to dipping into water ; and all the 
passages would be entirely blind and 
without meaning were no mention made 
of the substance into which the dipping 
or immersion took place. 

The same thing would be found true in 
the various passages in which the word 
“ sprinkle ” is found. Sometimes it is the 
sprinkling of water, sometimes blood, 
sometimes ashes, sometimes dust. 

Nearly all the passages containing 


Baptism. 


43 


either of these words are simple nar¬ 
rative : and every one of them would be 
obscure if the verb stood alone. And 
does not a positive command need to be 
made as plain as an historic narrative ? 
Do we expect a material point — the 
material point — to be omitted ? 

The water in baptism is either essential 
or it is not. If it is not, the classic 
baptizo will answer. If it is, baptizo in 
its classic sense utterly fails to meet the 
exigencies of the Christian ordinance. 
No water is mentioned in the Great Com¬ 
mission, and baptizo , in its usage in the 
one hundred and fifty passages of classic 
literature that have come down to us, is 
found to imply none. It is used of all 
sorts of substances, liquid and solid alike. 

But now, assuming that the word 
expresses in itself, as used in the Scrip¬ 
tures, the idea of “ ceremonial cleansing, 
or ritual purification, by water,” all is 


44 


Baptism. 


plain. On this supposition there is water 
enough in the command. The classic 
baptizo does not give us a drop. That 
means immerse, dip, or plunge, with no 
reference whatever to the material, or to 
any cleansing result that may be pro¬ 
duced. 

I see no escape from this argument. 
Were there no other evidence of a varia¬ 
tion from classic usage, the absolute 
exigencies of those passages commanding 
baptism would be sufficient to prove it. 
No WORD OF SPECIFIC MODE MERELY Can 

possibly fulfill the demand of these pas¬ 
sages. If we try “ Repent, and be 
sprinkled,” the incompleteness and the 
obscurity resulting are just the same as 
from the translation of the Baptist Union 
— “ Repent, and be immersed.” Sprin¬ 
kled with what ? would remain an un¬ 
answered question. 

The word baptizo must be understood 


Baptism. 


45 


to express some general idea of effect, 
and not merely of mode. Upon the sup¬ 
position that it was used in a sacred sense 
to denote a ceremony of religious cleans¬ 
ing and consecration, everything is plain. 

But is there any proof that it was so 
used and understood by those to whom 
the New Testament was given ? To that 
point I shall come in my next letter. 


LETTER V. 


N your letter in reply to my last 
you say: “ If, as you state, and 
as Dr. Carson affirms, and as you 
seem satisfactorily to prove, the classic 
baptizo carries in its own intrinsic mean¬ 
ing no water, how do you account for such 
a definition of the word as my Greek lexicon 
gives ? It is thus defined : ‘ Baptizo : to 
dip, plunge, or immerse in water.’ ” 

I answer that such a definition is a 
mere matter of carelessness on the part of 
the lexicographer. I have in my library 
the lexicon from which you quote: and I 
have also half a dozen others which define 
the word more exactly. I do not doubt 
that the lexicographer to whom you refer 
would, upon cross-examination, immedi¬ 
ately correct himself. 







Baptism . 


47 


An exact definition may always be sub¬ 
stituted for the word itself; but this 
definition will bear no such test. Were 
you a teacher of Greek, as you are of 
English, and were a boy to translate a 
sentence from his Greek reader thus: 
‘‘The ship, being immersed in water in 
the sea, soon sank to the bottom/’ you 
would say to him, “ In the sea ? Where 
do you get that?” “From the text, en 
thalasso “Very well. ‘Being immersed 
in water ’ — where do you get that ? ” 
“From baptizomenos: the dictionary tells 
me that baptizo means immerse in water.” 
“But is there not water enough ‘in the 
sea ’ for immersing a ship ? Why do you 
compel baptizomenos to furnish you any 
more ? Is it not very bad rhetoric to say 
‘being immersed in water in the sea’?” 
“ Yes ; but that is not my fault; I trans¬ 
late according to the dictionary! ” 

Were you as competent a teacher of 


48 


Baptism. 


Greek as you are of English, you would 
say to the student: “ Dictionaries some¬ 
times make mistakes ; the men who make 
them are sometimes careless. The dic¬ 
tionary should have defined baptizo some¬ 
thing like this: ‘To dip, plunge, or 
immerse; for example, in water, oil, 
vinegar, or something else, as the case 
may be.’ Neither the water, oil, nor 
vinegar is any part of the definition of 
the verb: the water no more than the oil 
or the vinegar.” 

The student, possibly, would not be 
entirely satisfied with your teaching ; for 
a boy in the Greek reader is very apt to 
be suspicious of a teacher who disputes 
the dictionary. So you wait, until three 
days after there is another sentence, 
which he translates thus: “ The man 
dipped the spoon in the' melted wax; ” 
and you say to him : “ Why do you not 
translate, ‘ He dipped the spoon in water 


Baptism . 


49 


in the melted wax ’ ? ” “ Because that 

would be absurd.” “ True ; but does not 
the dictionary say that baptizo means to 
dip in water? You did not get any water 
into your translation — nothing but melted 
wax! ” The student by this time dis¬ 
covers that the dictionary is at fault. 
And you go on to say to him : ‘‘You will 
find that whenever in classic Greek you 
meet baptizo in any of its voices, moods, 
or tenses; in any of its forms of number 
or person, the word itself carries neither 
water nor oil nor vinegar : but you will 
find that the thing into which the dipping, 
plunging, or immersion takes place is 
distinctly expressed, or so implied in the 
context, that it is equivalent to expressing 
it. Whether it be the sea or a lake; 
ointment or oil; milk or molasses, — it 
will be found to be stated. The verb it¬ 
self implies nothing whatever as to that.” 

Perhaps you will take occasion to say to 


50 


Baptism. 


the young student also another thing, and 
that is that dictionaries are not the high¬ 
est authority as to the meaning of words : 
there is always an appeal to actual usage 
as the court of final resort. 

Some dictionary makers are very exact 
in definitions. As a teacher of English 
you have found Webster to be one of the 
very best in this regard. And if you will 
turn now to this definition of the word 
“ immerse,” you will notice the contrast 
between his accuracy and the loose inex¬ 
actness of your Greek dictionary in defin¬ 
ing baptizo. Here is his definition of 
immerse : “To plunge into anything that 
surrounds or covers, especially into a 
fluid ; to dip ; to sink ; to bury ; to over¬ 
whelm.” No mention of water particu¬ 
larly as a part of the definition : “ Any¬ 
thing that surrounds, or covers.” One 
sinking in a quagmire; or buried in 
melted lava; or plunged into filth; or 


Baptism. 


5i 


dipped in water,—all alike are immersed. 
And this is the word, you will remember, 
which is chosen by the Baptist Union to 
express the ordinance of baptism. “ Re¬ 
pent and be immersed, every one of you.” 
Now there is no more water in “im¬ 
merse ” than in the classic baptizo: and 
if the use of pure water is implied in 
Christian baptism, then this translation 
fails to give it to us; but if the word 
baptizo in connection with the Christian 
ordinance has the signification of “cere¬ 
monial cleansing in the use of water,” 
then all is plain and easy. 

What is the matter of historic fact ? 
Had this word at the time of Christ 
taken on any such secondary meaning; 
and is it used in the New Testament in 
any such sense ? 

My first appeal is to the Septuagint: 
and I think it can be shown most conclu¬ 
sively that the word baptizo was under- 


52 


Baptism. 


stood by the Jews at the time of Christ, 
and had been so understood for a long 
time before, to convey the idea of cere¬ 
monial cleansing in the use of water, 
whether it was applied by sprinkling, 
pouring, or immersion. 

You will not need to be reminded that 
the Greek translation of the old Testa¬ 
ment Scriptures known as the Septuagint 
was made from one hundred and thirty 
to three hundred years before Christ : 
that the Apocryphal books, generally 
bound up with the rest in the Septua¬ 
gint, are of unquestioned antiquity, at 
least as old as the dates above given ; that 
although these books may not be regarded 
as canonical, yet some of them have been 
highly esteemed ; and whether so or not, 
they illustrate the usage of words among 
the Jews none the less. 

The word baptizo is found three times 
in the Septuagint in its literal sense; 


Baptism. 


53 


once figuratively. The first case of its 
occurrence is in 2 Kings 5 : 14 and is 
familiar. Here the word is used of Naa- 
man’s cleansing himself in the Jordan for 
the cure of his leprosy. 

In the Hebrew the word is tawbal , 
which ordinarily means to “dip,” or “im¬ 
merse,” without question. Gesenius, Bux- 
torph, and Fuerstio give no other defini¬ 
tion. Others give also “ cleanse” or 
“ wash.” 

But even if we admit that it never 
means anything but dip, plunge, or im¬ 
merse, it matters not, because it is not at 
all with the Hebrew word that we have to 
do. And this must be distinctly borne in 
mind. Baptist writers have often seemed 
to overlook that fact and assume that 
because the Septuagint uses the word 
baptizo it must be, of course, that it is 
the exact equivalent of the Hebrew word 
tawbal. This is a mistaken assumption, 


54 


Baptism . 


as we shall see. We have only to do 
with the Greek word which the Seventy 
have employed in translating it. * This 
word, as you know, is baptizo. 

What these translators meant to express 
by it may be better understood by observ¬ 
ing carefully all the various cases in which 
tawbal is found in the Hebrew, and the 
different ways in which they have ren¬ 
dered it. It is used sixteen times in the 
Hebrew Scriptures. Fourteen times it is 
translated into the Greek by bapto , once 
by molimo , once by baptizo . 

Was this a mere matter of accident ? 
If not, why did they make such a differ¬ 
ence ? 

The answer to this question may throw 
light on the whole subject. Already this 
word baptizo had come to be used in a 
peculiar sense — a religious sense — to 
signify water cleansing, and not merely 
to express the mode of it by dipping or 


Baptism. 


55 


immersion. In the case of Naaman, the 
main thing was the cleansing — not 
merely the cure of the leprosy, but the 
ceremonial cleansing; and as it was 
wrought by miracle, by the command of 
a prophet of the Lord, the Seventy 
thought it more fitting to use baptizo than 
bapto. It was not simply the healing of a 
repulsive disease, it was cleansing from a 
disease which symbolized sin — which 
shut him who had it from the congrega¬ 
tion of religious worshipers. It was, in 
a certain sense, and a very important 
sense, expressive of ritual purification. 

When Joseph’s brethren dipped his 
coat in the blood of the kid, some other 
word must be used. The Seventy re¬ 
coiled from employing baptizo. 

Dipping the bread in vinegar, dipping a 
rod in the honeycomb, dipping the feet in 
water or oil, or in the blood of one’s ene¬ 
mies,— even Aaron’s dipping his finger 


56 


Baptism. 


in the blood of the calf, — in all these 
cases bapto is employed; for although 
Aaron’s dipping his finger in the blood 
was part of a religious service, yet there 
was no religious cleansing of his finger or 
of his person at all suggested. 

But when Naaman, in obedience to the 
word of the prophet, and for his cleansing 
from a disease which made him who had 
it unfit for religious service, dipped him¬ 
self in the Jordan, baptizo might be used. 
And then it was used, not to express the 
dipping, but the resultant cleansing. This 
is made obvious by the only other case in 
which they translated the Hebrew word 
tawbal by any other word than bapto. 
That instance is found in Genesis 37:31: 
“And they took Joseph’s coat, and killed 
a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat 
in the blood.” Here the Seventy have 
translated by moluno , which means, not 
“to dip,” but “to defile.” 


Baptism. 


57 


Our translators — translating directly 
from the Hebrew—have given us two 
words which accurately represent tawbal: 
— “dip” and “plunge.” The Seventy 
have given us three, two of which repre¬ 
sent their own ideas of the effects in the 
two cases ; and if any one should be called 
to the work of translating the Septuagint 
into English, he would never for a mo¬ 
ment dream of translating moluno by 
anything else than “ defile.” That the 
Hebrew original meant “dip” or “plunge” 
would make no difference. It would 
constitute no argument to prove that 
moluno was understood by the Seventy 
to mean “plunge.” So the use of baptizo 
in the other example is no proof that they 
understood that word to mean “dip” or 
“immerse.” In the fourteen instances 
where they wish to say “dip,” without 
implying either cleansing or pollution, 
they translate by bap to. In one case 


58 


Baptism. 


implying defilement they used a word 
which means “ defile ” ; in the one im¬ 
plying cleansing, they used a word which 
they understood to mean “ cleanse.” We 
cannot believe that they translated the 
same Hebrew word fourteen times by 
bapto and once by baptizo , by mere chance 
and without a reason. When the dipping 
expressed by tawbal implied defilement, 
they used moluno to express defilement. 
In doing so it may be said that they 
mistook their proper office as translators. 
I think they did ; but that fact does not 
weaken the force of my argument; it 
gives strength to it. They were men of 
learning in the Greek. They knew that 
tawbal did not mean “ defile,” but simply 
“dip,” as we have it in our translation. 
But the effect of dipping Joseph’s coat 
into blood was defilement. Wishing to 
give expression to that effect they used 
moluno. 


Baptism. 


59 


One other instance they found in which 
the dipping expressed by tawbal resulted in 
cleansing : they knew that tawbal did not 
mean to cleanse; but wishing to give ex¬ 
pression to that effect, they employed, not 
bapto , which was the proper word for trans¬ 
lating tawbal —but baptizo , which meant 
“cleanse,” just as moluno meant defile. 

They knew that baptizo was under¬ 
stood by the Jews to mean “ cleanse,” and 
for that reason, and for no other, they 
used it in this one solitary case. 

This understanding of the matter 
makes everything plain and intelligible. 
They did not use bapto fourteen times, 
and then use baptizo once, because it 
meant the same thing as bapto (as Baptist 
writers generally maintain) but because it 
did not mean the same thing . Had they 
employed the two words bapto and baptizo 
indiscriminately — sometimes one and 
sometimes the other, by mere chance — 


6o 


Baptism . 


for translating the Hebrew tawbal , then 
there would be reason in the Baptist 
argument. But they did not use the two 
words indiscriminately. They used bapto 
everywhere to express simply dipping or 
immersion. The solitary instance in 
which the dipping resulted in ceremonial 
cleansing was that of Naaman: and in 
that case, and that only, they used baptizo 
tb express the cleansing. No other ex¬ 
planation of their use of it explains any¬ 
thing, but simply darkens counsel by 
words without knowledge. 

Were this the only instance of the use 
of baptizo , it would be wellnigh impos¬ 
sible to avoid the sure conviction that at 
the time of this translation (say, about 
two hundred years before Christ) baptizo 
was as well understood to express the 
idea of ritual purification by water, as 
moluno was understood to express the 
idea of defilement. 


Baptism. 


6 1 


But this is not the only case nor by 
any means the strongest to prove that 
baptizo was understood in this sense. 
Other examples will be given in my 
next letter. 


LETTER VI. 



N reply to my fifth letter you 
say : “ I have still two difficulties 
in reference to your explanation 
of the passage referring to Naaman: — 
(i) To translate baptizo by the word 
* cleanse’ makes the Septuagint to say 
that Naaman ‘cleansed himself seven 
times' in the Jordan. Now I can under¬ 
stand how dipping himself seven times, 
at the command of the prophet, should 
result in his being cleansed ; but was he 
cleansed seven times ? (2) Admitting 

that the word means ‘ cleanse,’ the 
cleansing was by dipping, was it not ? If 
so, how that could help me in reaching 
the conclusion that ritual purification 
might be attained by sprinkling or pour¬ 
ing, I cannot see.” 




Baptism. 63 

Your statement of these difficulties is 
both clear and concise. I shall try to 
meet them fully. 

First, as to the sevenfold cleansing, let 
me say three things : — 

(1) There is no greater difficulty in con¬ 
ceiving of cleansing a thing seven times 
than of washing it seven times; and just 
that was what Naaman was ordered to do 
by the prophet. Washing is not simply 
wetting. To wash a garment is to make 
it clean. Were I to quote the various 
passages in which the same word ( raw- 
chats ) that is here translated “ wash ” is 
found, it would be evident that it is sub¬ 
stantially a synonym of “cleanse.” Many 
of our Baptist brethren have the impres¬ 
sion that Naaman was commanded by the 
prophet to dip himself seven times in the 
Jordan. This is a mistake; he was di¬ 
rected to wash seven times: in other 
words, to cleanse himself seven times. 


6 4 


Baptism. 


(2) “Seven” being a common Hebrew 
symbol of completeness, to cleanse a 
thing seven times is, in Hebrew phrase¬ 
ology, to thoroughly cleanse it. 

(3) The usage of other passages abun¬ 
dantly justifies the Seventy in suppos¬ 
ing that a Jew might, without violating 
any law of Hebrew usage, speak of 
Naaman cleansing himself seven times: 
as, for example, Psalm 12:6: — “The 
words of the Lord are pure words. . . . 
purified seven times.” 

These remarks, I think, will fully meet 
your first difficulty. 

As to your second question I may say 
that thus far I have only mentioned one 
of the instances in which the word haptizo 
is used in the Septuagint. The others 
I am to give in their regular order. In 
the case of Naaman I' have no doubt that 
his mode of cleansing was by dipping 
himself in the Jordan, for the use of the 


Baptism. 65 

Hebrew word tawbal determines this. 
But this does not prove at all that the 
Greek word used by the Seventy meant 
“dip”; this I have endeavored to show 
was not the case.- That word meant 
simply to express the general fact that he 
cleansed himself as he had been told to 
do. He was not commanded to dip him¬ 
self, as we have seen ; but he was not 
forbidden to do so, and he chose his own 
mode of performing the water cleansing 
which had been required of him as the 
condition of his recovery. 

The very next instance to which I call 
your attention is one in which the cleans¬ 
ing was in some other manner than by 
dipping. It is found in the book of 
Judith, and shows conclusively that the 
word baptizo was used to express the gen¬ 
eral idea of ritual purification, and that, 
too, in a case where immersion is excluded 
with wellnigh absolute certainty. 


66 


Baptism. 


Allow me briefly to recapitulate the 
circumstances as they are given in this 
book — which is properly placed in the 
Apocrypha, but which was written, as 
generally understood, about two hundred 
years before Christ; and whether the 
book is historical or fictitious makes no 
difference in illustrating the use of the 
word baptizo. 

As the story runs, there was a war 
between the Assyrians and the Medes. 
Holofernes was the commander-in-chief of 
the Assyrian army, and led them forth to 
a war of conquest determined to compel 
all to submit to Nebuchadnezzar, the 
Assyrian king, and even to render him 
divine worship. In his progress he 
approached the land of Israel. The Jews 
prepared to resist him. They were in 
Bethulia and were rapidly coming into 
great distress. 

Judith, a Jewish widow, planned de- 


Baptism . 


67 


liverance for her country by a piece of 
superb strategy. Making herself as at¬ 
tractive as possible by reason of her 
personal beauty and her splendid attire, 
she went with her maid to the camp of 
Holofernes, pretending to take refuge 
there against the certain destruction 
which was speedily to overtake her 
people. In reality she had gone to the 
camp of the Assyrians for the purpose of 
getting Holofernes intoxicated and of 
taking his life, and so raising the siege 
and delivering her country. 

So well did she play her part that the 
king was deceived by “ her beauty of face 
and wisdom of words/’ and a tent was 
assigned to her and her maid. She re¬ 
mained in the camp three days, and 
having obtained permission to go out for 
prayer she went forth by night into the 
valley of Bethulia and purified herself 
( ebaptizeto ) in the camp at the fountain of 


68 


Baptism. 


water. And entering \n pure (kathara) she 
remained in the tent till one brought her 
food in the evening. (Judith 12:6, 7, 9.) 

This was evidently in form a religious 
purification. It was in the camp. It was 
under the eye of the guard. It was at a 
“fountain ” (pege) — “a spring ” — not 
a lake. She purified herself at the foun¬ 
tain, not in it. The Greek preposition is 
epi. It was, I repeat, within the camp, 
It was not a natural place for immersion. 
No lady would have been at all likely to 
immerse herself in such a place, even had 
there been facilities for it, which is not at 
all probable (though one Baptist writer, in 
his zeal for his theory, suggests that she 
might have found a horse-trough large 
enough for the purpose). 

“ But why should she leave her tent for 
a purification other than immersion ; and 
why at night ? ” To this objection several 
answers may be made. 


Baptism. 


69 


First, it may be said that as a Jewess, 
accustomed to the use of running water 
in all ritual cleansing, she would naturally 
choose water which had not gone through 
any uncircumcised hands, and which had 
not in any ceremonial way become un¬ 
clean. This she c-ould find only at the 
fountain itself. 

Secondly, it may be said that she had 
her own special reasons for this walk to 
the fountain at night. She had laid a 
deep plot. Before she got through with 
it she intended to get into her possession 
the head of the Assyrian general and to 
carry it back with her to the besieged city. 
So she went forth night after night, and 
returned again, until all suspicion had 
been allayed and the opportune moment 
had come. It was not till the fourth 
night that she could accomplish her mis¬ 
sion and return with the head of Holo- 
femes. 


70 


Baptism. 


Reasons enough may be suggested for 
her going to the fountain, and going at 
night, without adopting the utterly im¬ 
probable theory that it was for the pur¬ 
pose of immersion — a theory supported 
only by the assumption that the word 
baptizo means immerse and nothing else. 
Understanding it to express the general 
idea of ceremonial purification by water, 
all is easy. 

It might be added that as the professed 
purpose of her going to the fountain was 
for religious purification, and as the purifi¬ 
cation of the Jews was almost always by 
sprinkling, it is not at all probable that 
she would immerse herself, even could 
she have done so with perfect facility. 
But this would be to anticipate what will 
be said more fully hereafter. 

The only remaining instance in which 
baptizo is found in the Septuagint (ex¬ 
cept once in a figurative sense) occurs 


* 


Baptism. yi 

in “ Ecclesiasticus, or Son of Sirach,” 34 : 
25, and when properly studied is itself 
enough to settle the whole controversy. 
Your special attention is invited to this 
case, for if I am correct in my interpre¬ 
tation it IS ABSOLUTELY CONCLUSIVE. 

The passage is this: “ He that is puri¬ 
fied (baptizomenos ) from a dead body, and 
touches it again, what does his cleansing 
profit him ? ” 

We may safely assume that the author 
of this book understood the process of 
ceremonial cleansing to which he refers, 
and that he had in mind the process re¬ 
quired by the law of Moses. That law is 
laid down in the nineteenth chapter of 
Numbers. And the only and entire pro¬ 
cess of cleansing required was that the 
ashes of the burnt heifer should be put 
into a vessel, running water should be 
put thereto, and this water should be 
sprinkled upon him with a bunch of 


* 


72 Baptism. 

hyssop in the hands of a clean person. 

Nothing more whatever. 1 

Arid so it is said (Num. 19:13) that 
he who neglects to be thus purified from 
the touch of a dead body shall be cut off 
from his people; “because the water of 
separation was not sprinkled upon him, 
he shall be unclean.” 2 

So again in the 20th verse: “ The 
man that shall be unclean, and shall 
not purify himself, that soul shall be cut 
off from among the congregation, because 
he hath defiled the sanctuary of the 
Lord; the water of separation hath 

1 Whosoever in the open field toucheth one that is slain with a 
sword, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be 
unclean seven days. And for the unclean they shall take of the 
ashes of the burnt heifer of purification of sin, and running water 
shall be put thereto in a vessel: and a clean person shall take 
hyssop, and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it upon him that 
touched the bone, or the slain, or the dead, or the grave: and the 
clean person shall sprinkle upon the unclean on the third day, and 
on the seventh day. Num. 19 :16-19. 

2 Whosoever toucheth the dead body of any man that is dead, and 
purifieth not himself, defileth the tabernacle of the Lord; and that 
soul shall be cut off from Israel: because the water of separation 
was not sprinkled upon him, he shall be unclean. Num. 19: 13. 


t 


* 


Baptism. 73 

NOT BEEN SPRINKLED UPON HIM : he is 
unclean.” 

So, also, it is that the writer to the 
Hebrews says, in allusion to this law: 
“For if the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling 
the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying 
of the flesh, how much more shall the 
blood of Christ purge your conscience 
from dead works to serve the living God ? ” 
(Heb. 9:13, 14.) 

In like manner he speaks of having 
“our hearts sprinkled from an evil con¬ 
science.” (Heb. 10:22.) 

The entire process of cleansing from 

A DEAD BODY, TO WHICH THE SON OF SIRACH 
REFERS, WAS BY SPRINKLING, AND YET HE 
CALLS IT BAPTISM. 

Is it asked, how it comes that this argu¬ 
ment has not long ago settled the question 
in every candid mind ? I answer that it is 
because, somehow or other, writers on 
both sides have generally stumbled upon 


74 


Baptism. 


the grammar of the 19th verse of this 
chapter. So true is it that philology and 
theology are own brothers. By some 
strange oversight the fact that the subject 
of both parts of the verse are one and the 
same has not been noticed. 

This 19th verse reads thus: — “And 
the clean person shall sprinkle upon the 
unclean on the third day, and on the 
seventh day; and on the seventh day he 
(that is, the clean person who has now 
become somewhat unclean from contact 
with the unclean) shall purify himself, 
and wash his clothes, and bathe himself 
in water, and shall be clean at evening.” 
The pronoun “he” has been improperly 
referred to the unclean who had touched 
the dead body, whereas it refers to the 
person originally clean who had used the 
hyssop and the water of separation. 

Notice particularly the law upon the 
whole subject. That law required that a 


Baptism . 


75 


clean person should take hyssop and dip 
it in the water and sprinkle it upon him 
that had touched a dead person. And 
then it also required that after thus sprink¬ 
ling it upon the seventh day (which was 
for the last time) he should purify himself 
by washing his clothes and bathing. And 
by a wrong grammatical construction this 
washing and bathing have been referred 
to him who had touched the dead body. 
They were not at all a part of his cleansing. 
Nor was the sprinkling required of him 
who had used the hyssop. It is only 
necessary to read the verse naturally, 
without assuming any change of sub¬ 
ject in passing from the first to the 
second clause, and everything is plain. 
The originally clean person, who had 
used the hyssop upon the unclean, was 
regarded as so far infected that he was 
required to become disinfected by wash¬ 
ing his clothes and bathing himself in 


76 Baptism. 

water; and then he should be clean at 
evening. 

There is nothing whatever to indicate 
that the object of the first part of the sen¬ 
tence becomes the subject of the second 
part. Nothing whatever. On the con¬ 
trary the natural construction of the 
Hebrew, and equally so of the Greek in 
the Septuagint, as well as the English of 
our own versions,— both old and new,— 
all are in favor of the interpretation which 
I have given. 

Besides, the whole context is confirma¬ 
tory of it. Please to open to the passage 
and see how entirely plain it is. The 19th 
verse reads thus : — 

“And the clean person shall sprinkle 
upon the unclean on the third day, and on 
the seventh day: and on the seventh day 
he shall purify himself, and wash his 
clothes, and bathe himself in water, and 
shall be clean at evening.” Thus reads 


Baptism. 


77 


the 19th verse. All this is required of 
the clean person :— no intimation of any 
change of subject. But now notice how 
the next verse begins : — 

“ But the man that shall be un¬ 
clean, and shall not purify himself, that 
soul shall be cut off from among the con¬ 
gregation,” etc. 

To suppose that the second clause of 
the 19th verse refers to the unclean per¬ 
son is well nigh absurd, when it is so evi¬ 
dent that there is no reference to him 
until the beginning of the next verse, 
where he is so formally introduced. 

Notice, again, that in this same chapter 
there are several other enactments bearing 
upon precisely the same class of cases. 
For example, the priest who had officiated 
in connection with the slaying of the red 
heifer, and who had thus become infected, 
must pass through a similar process of 
disinfection. For this it is thus provided: 


78 


Baptism. 


“ Then the priest shall wash his clothes, 
and he shall bathe his flesh in water, and 
afterward he shall come into the camp, 
and the priest shall be unclean until the 
evening.” (verse 7.) 

Two other similar enactments follow : — 

“And he that burneth her shall wash 
his clothes in water, and bathe his flesh in 
water, and shall be unclean until evening.” 
(verse 8.) 

“And he that gathereth the ashes of 
the heifer shall wash his clothes, and be 
unclean until evening.” (verse 10.) 

Notice, again, that after enacting in the 
19th verse that the clean person who has 
become somewhat contaminated by sprink¬ 
ling the water of separation shall go 
through with the process of washing his 
clothes and bathing, it follows in the 
21 st verse: “And it shall be a perpetual 
statute unto them, that he that sprinkleth 
the water of separation shall wash his 


Baptism. 


79 


clothes.” This form of making a statute 
perpetual seems never to be used except 
when the statute has been previously an¬ 
nounced} But unless we understand it to 
be announced in the latter half of the 19th 
verse, it is not found at all. 

Every line of argument seems to compel 
the conclusion that I have given the only 
reasonable construction to the verse under 
consideration. 

To none of all those mentioned in the 
7th, 8th, and 9th verses was the water of 
separation applied. They who had any¬ 
thing to do with the purification of the 
unclean, even the one that gathered up 
the ashes, must all of them be clean in the 
outset. Their infection could be removed 
by bathing. But the unclean person must 
be cleansed by the sprinkling of that 

WHICH SYMBOLIZED AND REPRESENTED THE 


1 See Ex. 12:14,17; 29:9; 31:16; Lev. 3:17; 24:3; Num. 18: 
8,19; 19: so. 


8o 


Baptism . 


BLOOD OF CHRIST-AND BY THAT ALONE. 

The law recoiled from requiring more. 

I do not see how the case could be 
made any stronger. Either the Son of 
Sirach was utterly ignorant of what con¬ 
stituted the cleansing from a dead body, 
to which he refers (and no one has ever 
suggested any question as to his compe¬ 
tency), or he understood baptizo to be 
the right word to express a ceremonial 
cleansing which was performed solely by 

SPRINKLING. 

That he was not ignorant we may cer¬ 
tainly assume. And you can readily con¬ 
sult Josephus to discover that he under¬ 
stood the thing in the same way: that 

THE WHOLE CEREMONY OF CLEANSING FROM 
A DEAD BODY WAS BY SPRINKLING ALONE. 

And yet that ceremony is called baptism 
by the writer of this book of the Son 
of Sirach, which dates back at least two 
hundred years b.c. 


Baptism . 


8 


Lest you may not have Josephus’ works 
at hand, I will copy the sentence referred 
to. It is very significant, for it shows 
that this learned man, who certainly knew 
the Greek language as the Jews under¬ 
stood it, and knew Jewish customs, also 
called this sprinkling “baptism.” He 
says : “ Baptizing by this ashes put into 
spring water, they sprinkled on the third 
and seventh day.” 1 

The Greek word which he uses is 
baptizontes. 

Putting the words of the Son of Sirach 
by the side of those of Josephus, who 
wrote about two hundred and fifty years 
later, it will be seen that the word baptizo 
had for many generations been employed 
by the Jews who were familiar with the 
Greek to express this idea of ceremonial 
cleansing by water. It had been so used 
for at least two or three centuries before 


1 Jewish Antiquities, book iv: chapter 4. 


82 


Baptism. 


Christ. If Christ had used it in any 
other sense, it would have been neces¬ 
sary for him to state that fact; they 
would not naturally have expected him to 
use the word in any other sense, nor would 
they have understood him if he had so 
used it. 

And it is also seen that the word was 
so used where the entire cleansing was by 


SPRINKLING. 


LETTER VII. 

N your reply to my sixth letter you 
say: “ If I remember correctly, 
a certain Baptist writer translates 
the passage to which you refer, in the 
writings of the Son of Sirach, somewhat 
like this: ‘If he who has dipped or im¬ 
mersed himself on account of a dead 
body, shall again touch the corpse, what 
does his immersion avail ? ’ I would like 
to hear what you have to say to that.” 

First of all I have to say that this trans¬ 
lation is just like the “certain Baptist 
writer” to whom you refer. He begins 
with the assumption that because bap - 
tizo in the classic Greek means immerse, 
therefore it means immerse everywhere 
and always, and he makes everything 
bend to this theory. 

83 






8 4 


Baptism. 


Were I to declare that baptizo , in Jew¬ 
ish writings, always means to sprinkle, I 
could prove it with less violence to the 
laws of language than the ‘‘certain Bap¬ 
tist writer” is perpetually committing 
in asserting dogmatically that it always 
means immerse. 

To take, for example, the case of 
Naaman at the Jordan, I could say that 
it was certain that the Syrian general 
sprinkled himself, for there could be no 
question that the person alluded to in 
Ecclesiasticus cleansed himself by sprink¬ 
ling. True the Hebrew states that 
Naaman dipped himself; but that is a 
mere figure of speech. He simply 
sprinkled himself; but he did it so copi¬ 
ously that he was just as wet as though 
he had dipped himself, and for that reason 
the Hebrew word tawbal is used; and I 
could justify myself by quoting Milton : 
“The dew dips me all o’er.” Dew comes 


Baptism . 


8s 


down in mist, sprinkling one; but it 
may be so thorough a wetting as to be 
called a dipping. That sort of talk would 
be as reasonable as much of that “ certain 
Baptist writer’s ”; that is, it would be 
very unreasonable. 

But now, when I say that this word 
baptizo , meaning originally, in classic 
Greek, to immerse, came by a very 
common process, “ illustrated in the his¬ 
tory of a thousand words,” to mean, in 
Jewish usage, to cleanse or purify, without 
reference to mode, I make a statement 
which does violence to no law of language. 
Here in the history of Naaman the Sep- 
tuagint says that he baptized himself — 
that is, cleansed himself ceremonially — in 
the Jordan. The Hebrew says that he 
dipped himself. There is no contradiction ; 
the Septuagint states the general fact of 
the cleansing; the Hebrew states the par¬ 
ticular mode in which the cleansing was 


86 


Baptism. 


done on that occasion. All is reasonable; 
no violence is done to any principle of 
interpretation whatever. It is not neces¬ 
sary to assume, as some do, that the 
Seventy intended to say the thing exactly 
as the Hebrew has said it; they often 
varied from the Hebrew in a similar way. 
Were two men who have traveled together 
from New York to Chicago to report their 
journey, the one might say: “ We went 
by rail; ” the other might say : “ We went 
by a Pullman.” The reader who should 
therefore insist that these two expressions 
were entirely synonymous, and that 
nobody could go by rail without taking a 
Pullman, would reason just as does the 
writer you quote on this subject. 

There is such a thing as a fair treat¬ 
ment of language; there is such a thing 

as an unfair treatment of it. Dr.- is 

sometimes very extravagant in his dog¬ 
matic statements; his exegesis is violent 



Baptism. 87 

and unreasonable and fails to carry con¬ 
viction to those who stop to examine. 

Let us look for a moment at his transla¬ 
tion of the words of the Son of Sirach : 
“ If one who has dipped or immersed him¬ 
self on account of a dead body, shall after¬ 
wards touch again the dead body, what 
shall his dipping or immersion avail him ? ” 
Is this a fair translation ? It can be shown, 
I think, that it is very unfair. It is a 
translation that he would never have 
thought of, but for that unwarranted 
assumption of his as to the meaning of 
baptizo. He says : “ This word means dip, 
or immerse; it always means dip, or im¬ 
merse ; it can’t mean anything else; every¬ 
thing must yield to this.” 

Did not the Son of Sirach know the law 
of Moses to which he alludes in reference 
to ceremonial cleansing after one had 
touched a dead body ? No one can ques¬ 
tion that. What was that law ? I quoted 


88 


Baptism. 


it in my last letter; but let me refer to it 
again. It is very well worth our while to 
have it distinctly before us. This passage 
is the great battleground of this contro¬ 
versy. Turn to Numbers 19: 13, and you 
read: “ Whosoever toucheth the dead 
body of any man, and purifieth not him¬ 
self, . . . that soul shall be cut off from 
Israel; because the water of separation 
was not sprinkled upon him, he shall be 
unclean.” That is the whole of it. Not 
because he was not immersed — there was 
no immersion about it. The 17th and 18th 
verses describe the whole process : “ They 
shall take of the ashes of the burnt heifer 
of purification of sin, and running water 
shall be put thereto in a vessel: and a 
clean person shall take hyssop, and dip it 
in the water, and sprinkle it upon him 
that touched the dead.” 

The 19th verse goes on to give direc¬ 
tions that this should be done by a clean 


Baptism. 


89 


person, and should be done twice— on the 
third day and on the seventh. The only 
“dipping” was of the hyssop into the 
water. 

What right has Dr. - to translate : 

“ If any person has dipped or immersed 
himself on account of a dead body ” ? Did 
not the Son of Sirach know the law ? He 
had seen it executed many a time, no 
doubt. And he says no such thing as the 
doctor has put into his mouth. What he 
says is : “If the man who has been bap¬ 
tized (that is, cleansed ceremonially) from 
a dead body — if he shall touch the dead 
body again, what does his cleansing avail 
him ? ” He said this, knowing that the 
whole process of baptism spoken of was 
in the sprinkling of the water which had 
been put upon the ashes of the burnt 
heifer. If the water of separation had 
not been sprinkled upon him, he was un¬ 
clean ; if it had, he was cleansed. 


9 o 


Baptism. 


The doctor’s translation is an unpardon¬ 
able violence to the laws of human speech. 
When a man’s theory compels him to such 
violence, he should conclude that his 
theory is wrong. After my study of this 
passage, I never could again assert that 
baptizo always meant immerse — never — 
for here was a plain case, plain as day, 
where it was used in reference to a cere¬ 
monial cleansing that consisted wholly 

IN SPRINKLING, and YET IT WAS CALLED 
BAPTISM. 

And this was in a writing that 

WAS TWO HUNDRED YEARS OLD WHEN 

Christ was born. 

But this to which I have referred is 
not the only violence to language which 
the doctor’s translation of this passage 
involves. The preposition apo means 
“from,” not “on account of.” To speak 
of being “ cleansed from a dead body ” 
makes good sense; to speak of being 


Baptism. 


91 


i 

“ immersed from a dead body ” does not. 
So the doctor must translate apo “on 
account of.” This is, to say the least, 
strained and far-fetched. In one instance 
in a thousand, perhaps, it might possibly 
bear such a translation. But it is doubt¬ 
ful. Certainly no such translation is given 
to it in the New Testament, although it 
is used about four hundred times. 

Nor is this all. His translation of the 
last part of the sentence is not only with¬ 
out adequate foundation ; it is absolutely 
against all the dictionaries and all the 
examples which I have been able to find. 
It is another illustration of the doctor’s 
facility of assumption. “ What avails his 
dipping, or immersion ? ” he renders it. 
The Greek word is loutro. Lotto , the 
verb, is used six times in the Greek Tes¬ 
tament and is always translated “wash.” 
The noun is used twice and is in both 
cases translated “washing.” The transla- 


92 


Baptism. 


tion that I have given to it expresses the 
idea perfectly: “ If he touch the dead 
body again, what avails his cleansing ? ” 
The word often and more strictly means 
‘‘a bath.” And this suggests the very 
interesting and pertinent question as to 
what was the ancient method of bathing. 
For, as you know without any doubt, Bap¬ 
tist writers generally insist that “ bathing” 
implies immersion. This is the doctor’s 
assumption in his translation of this pas¬ 
sage before us. It is a groundless assump¬ 
tion. I think whoever studies the subject 
thoroughly will find it true that in all 
Eastern bathing, in both ancient and 
modern times, it was regarded as a matter 
of chief importance that the water should 
be in motion. This was especially so 
among the Jews. The water applied to 
the ashes was to be “running water,” as 
seen from the quotation above. (Num. 
19:17.) In the Hebrew it is literally 


Baptism . 


93 


“ living ” water. (See marginal rendering 
in Num. 19:17; Lev. 14: 50, 51, 52.) 

This was the idea with the Greeks and 
Romans as illustrated by their baths, as 
described by Dr. William Smith in his 
dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiqui¬ 
ties. “It would appear,” he says, “from 
the description of the bath administered 
to Ulysses in the palace of Circe, that the 
vessel did not contain water itself, but was 
only used for the bather to sit in while the 
water was poured over him. The water 
was heated in a large caldron, under which 
the fire was placed, and when sufficiently 
warmed was taken out in other vessels 
and poured over the head and shoulders 
of the person who sat in the bathtub.” 

Dr. Smith further says: “ On ancient 
vases, on which persons are represented 
bathing, we never find anything corre¬ 
sponding to a modern bath in which per¬ 
sons can stand or sit; but there is always 


94 


Baptism. 


a round or oval basin resting on a stand, 
by the side of which those who are bath¬ 
ing are represented standing undressed 
and washing themselves.” 1 

Confirmatory of this is a description 
given by Plutarch of bathing among the 
Greeks, in which he says: “ Some give 
orders to throw the water on cold; others 
warm.” 2 

Wilkinson, on the manners and customs 
of the ancient Egyptians, speaks of a 
painting in an old tomb at Thebes, which 
represents a lady at the bath, in which one 
of her attendants is pouring water from a 
vase over her head. 3 

Travelers in the East find the same cus¬ 
tom, even when persons resort to a river 
for bathing. It is not for immersion, but 
for running water, which is thrown, poured, 
or sprinkled upon the bather. Water in 

1 See Dr. Smith's Dictionary: Article, “ Baths.” 

s See Wilson on Baptism, p. 167. 

3 vol. iii, p. 328. 


Baptism. 95 

motion seems everywhere to be sought 
for. 

There is still another criticism upon the 
doctor’s translation of the passage from 
the Son of Sirach. He translates : “ If 
he who has dipped or immersed himself 
etc. The doctor could not have failed to 
know, had he thought but a moment, that 
the person who had touched a dead body 
could not cleanse himself by any process 
whatever. The cleansing must be wrought 
by means of the sprinkling of the water 
of cleansing by another, that other being 
free from any taint of uncleanness. 1 

The doctor’s translation is every way 
awry: the only fair translation is the one 
which I have quoted substantially from 
the common edition of the Apocrypha, 
sometimes bound up with our old version. 

1 A clean person shall take hyssop, and dip it in the water, and 
sprinkle it upon him that touched a bone, or one slain, or one dead: 
and the clean person shall sprinkle upon the unclean on the third 
day, and on the seventh day. Num. 19:18, 19. 


LETTER VIII. 


reglS in your response to my last let- 
{Wji ter you express yourself entirely 
satisfied with the force of the 
argument based upon the usage of baptizo 
in the Septuagint, we are prepared to go 
forward. 

The importance of this showing as to 
the accepted usage of the word at the 
time the New Testament was written 
cannot be overestimated; for thus it 
appears that this word was well under¬ 
stood among the Jews to mean just what 
I have claimed. It conveyed to those 
who heard Christ’s teaching no other idea 
than that of ceremonial cleansing by 
water without regard to the mode of its 
application. This Greek translation of 
the sacred writings was the one with 





Baptism. 


97 


which they were more familiar than they 
were even with the Hebrew Bible. It is 
from the Septuagint that Christ and the 
apostles generally quote. 

True the word is found only three 
times in the Septuagint, but that is 
enough to illustrate the usage ; and it is 
interesting to notice that in one of these 
three the baptism was by sprinkling, in 
one by immersion, in the other certainly, 
or almost certainly, not by immersion and 
probably by pouring. But whatever the 
mode of applying the water the word 
baptizo is used only in the general sense 
of ceremonial cleansing. Naaman bap¬ 
tized himself by immersion in the running 
Jordan. The man who had touched a 
dead body was baptized by sprinkling. 
Judith baptized herself at the fountain by 
sprinkling or pouring. 

The Jews were thus already accus¬ 
tomed, AND HAD BEEN ACCUSTOMED FOR 


9 8 


Baptism. 


TWO HUNDRED YEARS OR MORE, to Using 
this word in this sense. 

Does the meaning in the New Testa¬ 
ment correspond with this usage ? 

To this it might be answered: “ Of 
course it must have corresponded to this, 
for the Septuagint constituted the basis of 
their language/’ But I do not propose to 
assume so much as this. On the contrary, 
if you will have the patience to follow me, 
I will refer to every passage in which the 
word occurs. It is most fitting to begin 
with that found in Hebrews 9:10. You 
will see why. It is because the writer is 
referring to Jewish ordinances and cus¬ 
toms ; and these, of course, antedate those 
which are properly Christian. 

The writer to the Hebrews is discours¬ 
ing of the ceremonial dispensation “which 
stood only in meats and drinks and 
4 divers baptisms' ” (Greek, baptismois) 
In my review of the position which I 


Baptism . 


99 


had so long and so honestly occupied (as 
I have spoken of it in my first letter) I 
said to myself when I came to this verse: 
“ Here I shall find my Baptist views well 
sustained ; there are plenty of immersions 
laid down in the ceremonial law to justify 
the writer of this epistle in speaking of 
them as ‘ divers baptisms.’ ” Accordingly 
I set myself to making an array of them. 
If you have not gone through with this 
or some similar experiment, you will 
scarcely be prepared to appreciate my 
astonishment at not being able to find 
one. Purifyings there were — “ divers ” 
of them ; but immersions — not one ! Of 
course my method was to take my Hebrew 
concordance and trace all the passages in 
which tawbal was used in the Old Testa¬ 
ment in setting forth the things required 
of the worshiper. As I have previously 
stated, I found that the word was used 
only sixteen times in all, and the only 


IOO 


Baptism. 


instance that approached a ceremonial 
usage, such as this verse speaks of, was 
Naaman’s dipping or immersing himself 
in the Jordan ; and in that case I found 
that he was not commanded to dip or 
immerse himself, but to cleanse himself. 
He chose to do it by immersion, and as 
the method of cleansing was not specified, 
it was proper for him to choose his own. 
I have not succeeded thus far in finding 
one instance in which anybody was re¬ 
quired to dip or immerse himself, or to be 
dipped or immersed by another, from the 
beginning of Genesis to the end of Mala- 
chi. And yet the Epistle to the Hebrews 
speaks of this Old Testament Dispensa¬ 
tion as embracing “divers baptisms .” 

You can readily believe that my pre¬ 
vious notion that baptism always meant 
immersion received at this point another 
staggering blow. “ Divers baptisms ” — 
not one immersion, is the way the case 


Baptism. 


. IOI 


stands. The Hebrews, to whom this 
epistle was written, understood the matter. 
Long before this the word baptism had 
come to mean ceremonial water cleansing, 
and not immersion, in all the sacred writ¬ 
ings. Shall we find that it never means 
anything else, except in a figurative sense ? 
We shall see. 

For the present we confine our thoughts 
to this passage and must agree, I think, 
that upon the assumption that baptism 
meant ceremonial water cleansing, every¬ 
thing is clear; but assume for a moment 
that it meant immersion, and everything 
is dark. More than that—what the 
writer to the Hebrew says is impossible to 
be understood at all upon that assumption. 

To this may be added the evidence from 
the context, which plainly indicates that 
the reference is to the “ purifyings ” under 
the law, and not to immersions, even had 
there been any; for the writer goes on to 


102 


Baptism. 


say: “ If the blood of bulls and of goats, 
and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the 
unclean , sanctifieth to the purifying of the 
flesh; how much more shall the blood of 
Christ, who, through the Eternal Spirit, 
offered himself without spot to God, 
cleanse your conscience from dead works 
to serve the living God?” (Heb. 9:13, 
14.) 

The ceremonial purifyings of the Old 
Testament Dispensation contrasted with 
the spiritual cleansing wrought through the 
blood of Christ is the obvious scope of the 
entire passage. Our translation uses the 
word '* washings ” where it is baptismois 
in the Greek ; but the word “ purifyings ” 
or “ cleansings ” would be preferable ; for 
it appears from the passage itself that the 
writer has in mind the purifyings that 
were by sprinkling — that word being 
introduced no less than three times within 
nine verses. Read at your leisure the 


Baptism. 


103 


whole chapter, and you will see that I am 
not mistaken in my interpretation of it. 
I think that I do not speak too strongly 
when I say that “ divers immersions ” is 
an utterly impossible version of the words 
which are so rendered by the Baptist 
Union. 

Mark 7: 2-4. 

An allusion to Jewish customs that 
comes next in order is that found in the 
first part of the seventh chapter of Mark. 
I quote the verses : — 

“ There are gathered together unto him 
the Pharisees and certain of the scribes 
who had come from Jerusalem, and had 
seen that some of the disciples ate their 
bread with defiled, that is, with unwashen 
hands: For the Pharisees and all the 
Jews, except they wash their hands with 
the fist, eat not, holding the tradition of 
the elders; and when they come from the 
market, except they baptize themselves, 


104 


Baptism. 


they eat not; and many other things 
there be which they have received to hold, 
as the baptizings of cups and, pots, and 
brazen vessels, and tables.” 

This is a very interesting passage. I 
have given it my own translation, which 
I will proceed to explain and defend. The 
word pngme I have translated literally — 
“with the fist.” In the old version it is 
translated “ oft ” ; in the new version 
“diligently.” I think that there is more 
light upon this point than has generally 
been seen hitherto, and after thorough 
study of the matter I have been entirely 
clear that the rendering which I have 
given it, suggested by M. C. Hazard in 
The Congregationalist , is the true one. 
But to that I will come again presently. 

The first thing I wish to call your atten¬ 
tion to is the practice to which allusion is 
here made of baptizing themselves when¬ 
ever they returned from the market. That 


Baptism. 


105 


this was immersion is incredible. Every¬ 
body in the East goes often to the market¬ 
place. It is a large open square and is 
the great public resort. It would require, 
with many, several immersions a day. 
Even “ bathing,” as we have seen, was not 
performed by immersion, and this “ bap¬ 
tizing,” of which Mark speaks, was obvi¬ 
ously for ceremonial cleansing. The peo¬ 
ple had always known that even after 
having touched a dead body the “ baptiz¬ 
ing ” was by sprinkling. The ceremonial 
cleansing from the leprosy was by sprink¬ 
ling. “ The priest shall sprinkle upon 
him that is to be cleansed from the 
leprosy seven times” (Lev. 14:7). At 
the public market one might have unknow¬ 
ingly touched some leper, or some unclean 
beast, or some one who was unclean from 
having touched a dead body; and it was 
not an unnatural thing that he should 
conclude that it was a proper precaution 


io6 


Baptism. 


to cleanse himself upon his return home ; 
and the first thing he would think of was 
to do it by sprinkling. He would never 

THINK OF DOING IT BY IMMERSION, there 
not being a single requirement for immer¬ 
sion in the whole Mosaic code. Moreover 
it must be by water in motion. “ Run¬ 
ning water ” — “ living water ” was always 
prescribed (see Lev. 14: 5, 6, 51, 52; 15 : 
13; Num. 19:17). This is a most im¬ 
portant point to be noticed; and I beg 
of you to read the passages which I have 
indicated, so as to fix that point in mind 
thoroughly. As we have already seen, 

NO BATHING TUB FOR IMMERSION WAS EVER 

used. When such a tub was used in 
connection with the bathing of the whole 
person, the bather used it simply for a 
receptacle of the water after it had been 
sprinkled or poured upon the body. The 
water was then defiled and unfit for fur¬ 
ther use. 


Baptism . 


107 


The method of washing the hands at 
the present day as I found it in Syria and 
in Turkey is very suggestive of what 
there is every reason to believe was the 
custom in all Bible lands and Bible times. 
If you enter a house, the servant appears 
with a washbowl and pitcher. But you 
are never expected to pour water into the 
bowl and wash, as our habit is. The 
empty bowl is put in a place convenient 
for you to hold your hands over it. The 
attendant then pours the water on your 
hands, and you wash them with soap or 
without, and the dirty water falls into the 
bowl. It would shock every Oriental idea 
were you to dip your hands into the bowl 
unless you were without any possible 
means of doing otherwise. The water 
poured from the pitcher becomes “ running 
water,” and your hands are cleansed in 
that way. 

And now we are prepared to under* 


108 Baptism. 

stand that clause about washing “ with the 
fist.” Many times there is no servant in 
attendance to pour the water or to sprinkle 
it upon the Oriental traveler or upon this 
man who comes home after contact with 
something or with somebody unclean. 
He must himself, therefore, perform the 
whole ceremony. How does he do it ? 
He lays hold upon the pitcher himself 
with one hand and pours the water upon 
the other; and in turn takes the pitcher 
in the other hand and pours the water 
upon the first. So they are both cleansed 
in the “ running water.” I quote here 
the words of Mr. Hazard, to which I re¬ 
ferred a little while ago : — 

“ It was a feeling that the real explana¬ 
tion of this passage had not yet been 
reached that led me several years ago to 
take the passage to a noted Jewish rabbi 
for interpretation. He read it in the Greek, 
and then contemptuously said : ‘ It is evi- 


Baptism. log 

dent that Mark did not know what he was 
talking about.’ Catching my breath at 
such an easy disposing of the matter and 
of the author of the second Gospel, I ap¬ 
proached the subject from a new direction. 
I asked the rabbi whether it is true that 
now the Pharisees do not eat, except as 
they first baptize their hands. He replied 
in the affirmative, and, on my request for 
more information, said : ‘ But we do not 
baptize them as you do in a quiet pool, 
but in running water, either in a natural 
stream or in the water flowing from a 
hydrant, or in water poured from some 
vessel by main strength from one hand 
upon the other.’ The expression ‘by main 
strength ’ immediately caught my atten¬ 
tion, and I said to him : ‘ Rabbi, I thought 
that you said that Mark did not know 
what he was writing about. When- he 
says “from the fist,” doesn’t he mean 
exactly what you have now said ? Ordi- 




I IO 


Baptism. 


narily it would have been impossible in 
Mark’s day for any one to have baptized 
his hands at home in running water, ex¬ 
cept as he poured it out of some pitcher 
or basin “from the fist” upon the other 
hand.’ The rabbi thought for a moment, 
and then, with a candor which much com¬ 
mended this modern Pharisee, said: ‘ I 
was wrong; that was what Mark did 
mean.’ ” 

Mr. Hazard then goes on to say : “The 
rabbi had awakened my curiosity in saying 
that the Jews never baptize their hands 
except in running water, and I asked him 
for the reason of that. His reply was 
that ‘ still water represents death and cor¬ 
ruption, and running water life and the 
quickening influences of God’s Spirit.’ 
‘In any of their ceremonial lavations,’ I 
inquired, ‘do the Jews lay any emphasis 
upon the amount of water in which they 
baptize?’ ‘None; the tiniest stream of 


Baptism . 


n i 


water would suffice for his most complete 
ceremonial lavation.’ ’ u 

There is also another practice which 
the modern traveler has frequent occasion 
to observe, which may have prevailed in 
New Testament times, and to which refer¬ 
ence may have been made in this passage. 
Sometimes there is no vessel which the 
man can lift even “by main strength,” and 
in that case he takes up a “ fist ” full of 
water — say in his right hand — and pours 
it or sprinkles it upon the left. The left 
is thus cleansed. But, although the right 
hand has gone into the water, it is not yet 
cleansed; for it went only into the stag¬ 
nant water. The left “fist ” in like man¬ 
ner is used to cleanse the right hand by 
water set in motion ; so thoroughly is the 
mind possessed of the idea that it must 
be water in motion in order to effect the 
cleansing. One who sees day after day 
this process constantly gone through with 


Baptism. 


112 

can easily believe that it might have been 
this which was referred to by Mark. 

This word pngme has always been a 
troublesome one to the translator and to 
the commentator. It is found only once 
in the New Testament, and hence there is 
no opportunity for comparing different 
passages in which it is used. But it is 
thoroughly confirmatory of this interpre¬ 
tation to notice that this same word is 
used twice in the Septuagint, and in both 
cases it is unhesitatingly to be translated 
“with the fist,” and nothing else. 1 

It is, therefore, almost certain to my 
mind that this is the only proper transla¬ 
tion here; and it renders a very obscure 
passage entirely intelligible. 

It may also be added that it would be 
difficult, if not impossible, to find any 

1 If men strive together, and one smite another with a stone, or 
with his fist, and he die not, but keepeth his bed, etc. Ex. 21: 18. 
Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of 
wickedness. 15.58:4. 


Baptism. 


1 13 

authority in classic Greek for the transla¬ 
tion given, either in the old or the new 
version. I have never seen quoted, in any 
Greek lexicon, a single passage in which 
the word is supposed to mean either oft 
or diligently. Liddell and Scott refer only 
to the passage in Mark, as one in regard 
to which they do not commit themselves; 
but only say that “it is interpreted by 
some to mean diligently, and by others 
oft.” Professor Thayer, in his lexicon of 
the New Testament, seems decidedly to 
accept the translation which is here advo¬ 
cated, although he makes a different com¬ 
ment upon it. 1 

1 Pugme niptesthai tas c heir as, to wash the hands with the fist, 
that is, so that one hand is rubbed with the clenched fist of the other. 
Translating “ with the fist,” each reader can decide for himself which 
of the two explanations is the more natural. With the Eastern 
custom in mind, as it is seen everywhere, it is easy for me to decide; 
for Professor Thayer’s comment is just as consistent with our fashion 
of washing as with theirs, and does not imply that the water is in 
motion at all, which with them is the main thing. I have often seen 
the ceremonial cleansing of very dirty hands without the slightest 
attempt at any rubbing. In truth, the hands were just as dirty after 
the “ cleansing ” as before. But they had sprinkled the water very 
vigorously. 


Baptism. 


1 14 

In this same passage is the reference to 
the baptism of “tables,” and, according to 
some of the manuscripts, of “couches.” 
I am aware that the most approved manu¬ 
scripts do not contain either of these 
words. But the fact that these readings 
are among the oldest shows that they 
were accepted for centuries; and they 
never would have been introduced had 
there been any supposed impossibility in 
baptizing tables and couches. Their im¬ 
mersion was a manifest impossibility. Let 
any one visit the old city of Pompeii, 
buried up in a.d. 70, and see the uniform 
construction of their tables — occupying 
three sides of a hollow square, stationary, 
incapable of immersion — and all doubt 
on that subject will be at once removed. 
They were baptized, if at all, by sprink¬ 
ling, beyond any reasonable question. 
Baptizo had long before that come to ex¬ 
press the idea of ceremonial purification; 


Baptism. 


i f 5 

such ceremonial purification was never 
once required to be by immersion; it was, 
in many instances, commanded to be by 
sprinkling, and hence it is the most natu¬ 
ral conclusion possible that they never 
dreamed of baptizing tables and couches 
by dipping them. 

In Luke 11:38 is another passage 
showing the use of the word baptizo 
among the Jews. A Pharisee had invited 
Jesus to dine with him, and he went in 
and sat down to meat: “And when the 
Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had 
not first baptized himself before eating.” 
It is very hard to believe that Christ 
was expected to immerse himself before 
eating. 

This is evidently the same sort of thing 
that is spoken of in the passage which we 
have just been considering. Christ had 
been mingling with the multitude. It was 
the need of ceremonial cleansing in the 


ii 6 Baptism. 

ordinary way which they had in mind. 
That was by sprinkling. There is no 
proof that their houses were constructed 
with accommodations for immersion of all 
their guests: the proof is on the other 
side. 

In the account of the marriage at Cana 
of Galilee we have the thing so described 
as to make it visible. “ There were set 
twelve firkins after the manner of the Jews 
purifying .” From this water the guests 
drew off and sprinkled themselves — or 
the servants poured it upon them. The 
water was so used that it was entirely fit 
for drinking purposes. Not even the 
hands of the guests were put into it; it 
was for something very different from 
immersion. 

Next in chronological order comes the 
use of this word in describing John’s bap¬ 
tism, and I begin by saying that even 
if it could be proved that immersion was 


Baptism. 


ii 7 

sometimes practiced in New Testament 
times — nay, if it could be proved that it 
was always practiced — that would not 
settle the question that immersion was 
required. That is to be determined only 
by the meaning of the word. 

“ What does the law of Christ require ? ” 
is the only question that vitally concerns 
us. Christ and his apostles sat while they 
preached. We are commanded to preach, 
but we are not commanded to sit while we 
preach. Christ and his apostles always 
traveled either on foot or on horseback or 
in boats, when they’ went on their preach¬ 
ing tours. We are commanded to go into 
all the world with the gospel, but we are 
not commanded to go in the same way 
they went. Christ and his apostles cele¬ 
brated the Lord’s supper reclining at table. 
(This is the only meaning of the word 
used in the Greek, although our transla¬ 
tors have rendered it by our word “sit.”) 


118 


Baptism. 


We are commanded to eat and drink, but 
we are not commanded to do it reclining. 
They went about doing good, wearing 
sandals and loose flowing togas. We are 
required to go about doing good, but 
we are not confined to their manner of 
doing it. 

As to the meaning of the words “ bap¬ 
tize” and “baptism,” we have found that 
they were sometimes (to say the least) 
used of ceremonial cleansing which was 
performed without immersion; that the 
writer to the Hebrews refers to the Old 
Dispensation as requiring of the worshiper 
“divers baptisms,” while in the Old Testa¬ 
ment IMMERSION IS NEVER ONCE REQUIRED. 

This settles the question — that the law 
of baptism does not require immersion; 
and the particular manner, therefore, in 
which John and the apostles baptized is 
as immaterial to us as their manner of 
dressing, their methods of missionary 


Baptism. 119 

travel, or their position at the Lord’s 
table. 

I say thus much because we ought 
always to make this discrimination be¬ 
tween what the apostles did and what we 
are required to do. They had all things 
common, and it has sometimes been 
argued that their example is a law to us. 
This is a mistake. Their example is not at 
all binding upon us any farther than it 
can be shown that it was in accordance 
with the commands of the Master. 

I do not speak of this because I think 
that, as a matter of fact, John the Baptist 
and the apostles baptized by immersion as 
a general thing. I do not think that they 
did. In some cases it is certain to my 
mind that they did not: in none is it cer¬ 
tain that they did. But even if they did, 
it imposes no obligation on us. 

With this preliminary statement we can 
come to the study of the history with a 


120 


Baptism. 


proper appreciation of the weight of the 
argument, whatever it may be. First in 
order comes the record of John’s baptism. 

It is argued that this was by immersion 
on two grounds : — 

I. “The baptism is said to be in the 
river Jordan.” This proves nothing, for 
(i) it was so distinctly impressed upon 
every Jew that ceremonial cleansing 
(which we have already shown was ex¬ 
pressed by the word “baptism”) must 
always be by running water (or, as it is in 
the Hebrew, “ living water ” ) that we can 
readily understand how much pains would 
be taken to reach it. (2) The preposition 
which is here translated “in” is very fre¬ 
quently rendered “at.” You will hear it 
said that only epi means “at,” and that en 
means “ in.” But this is so far from being 
an invariable rule that any one who will 
be at the trouble of looking the matter up 
will find that epi is found only forty-four 


Baptism . 121 

times in the Greek where we have in our 
version the rendering “ at,” over against 
one hundred and two times in which “at ” 
is the translation of en. (3) The expres¬ 
sion “in the river Jordan” applies to the 
whole river bed, which is often—I may 
more truly say almost always — much 
wider than the stream. Travelers speak of 
pitching their tents “in the river Jordan,” 
meaning within the outer banks of course, 
not in the water. 

II. “The account states that Jesus, 
after his baptism, went up out of the 
water; this implies his immersion,” I 
reply: (1) “out of the water” is ad¬ 
mitted by all competent critics not to be 
an exact translation. No Baptist scholar 
would be willing to risk his reputation 
upon such a rendering of the preposition 
apo. In the Revised Version it is trans¬ 
lated “ from ” and never should have been 
translated otherwise. (2) Assuming that 


122 


Baptism . 


John used a bunch of hyssop and per¬ 
formed the baptism according to the old 
law — dipping it into the running water 
and sprinkling those who came to his bap¬ 
tism— everything told us of John’s bap¬ 
tism at the Jordan would apply. There is 
not one circumstance, nor one detail, that 
would need to be changed. 


LETTER IX. 



N response to my last you say: 
“ How do you get along with the 
version of the Baptist Union, in 
which they translate Matt. 3:11 — ‘I 
indeed immerse you in water ’ ? Is not 
the preposition en used here, and are they 
not justified in saying ‘ in water ’ ? I 
would prefer to retain the word ‘ baptize *: 
but why not translate, ‘ I, indeed, baptize 
you in water ’? ” 

You put the matter very well; and I 
will endeavor to make my answer plain to 
one who has not studied the Greek as 
well as to one who has. Let me say, then, 
three things :— 

1. The preposition en often means 
“with.” It is so translated in our Com¬ 
mon Version more than a hundred times. 


123 





124 


Baptism. 


Take one verse as a sample to illustrate 
its use in expressing, as the grammars 
say, “ the manner, means, or instru¬ 
ment.” It is found in I Cor. 5:8: “ Let 
us keep the feast not with old leaven, 
neither with the leaven of malice and 
wickedness, but with the unleavened 
bread of sincerity and truth.” Three 
times in this verse en is translated 
“with.” No English scholar, I think, 
would translate it in any other way. 

2. That this is the proper translation 
whenever it is used in referring to water 
baptism is made clear from the fact that 
in three out of eight cases in which water 
baptizing is spoken of there is no prep¬ 
osition at all. For example, in Matt. 
3:11, John is represented as saying, “ ego 
baptizo humas en hudati ,” while in Luke 
3: 16 the same statement of John is in 
these words : “ ego baptizo humas hudati!' 
In this last form hudati can be nothing 


Baptism. 


125 

else but the “ dative of means, or instru¬ 
ment.” “I baptize you with water” is 
the obvious and only translation. Hence 
the parallel passage in Matthew must 
naturally be translated in the same way. 
In other words the case stands thus: 
Luke’s version of what John says can 
only mean “ with water ” ; Matthew’s ver¬ 
sion, taken by itself, could be translated 
either “ with water ” or “in water.” The 
former makes the two accounts to har¬ 
monize completely, and is therefore to be 
preferred. 

3. You will see also that it is too plain 
for contradiction ; that, as no one would 
ever think of saying, “ I immerse you 
with water,” “ immerse ” is not the proper 
translation of “baptize” in Luke 3:16. 
And if not in this verse, then it is not in 
the parallel verse in Matt. 3:11. 

But we wish to study this passage 
which speaks of John’s baptism a little 


126 


Baptism. 


more thoroughly, to see whether the defi¬ 
nition of “ baptize ” as expressing the idea 
of ceremonial cleansing does not entirely 
fit the whole connection far better than 
the theory that it means immerse. 

Here is the passage in full : “ I, indeed, 
baptize you with water, but he that com- 
eth after me is mightier than I, whose 
shoes I am not worthy to bear. He shall 
baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with 
fire.” 

Understanding the word baptize to ex¬ 
press purification or cleansing, everything 
is plain. John’s cleansing was by water ; 
Christ’s should be by the Spirit and by 
fire. An evident advance in thought, 
which is entirely natural, purification run¬ 
ning through the whole. And as if to 
make it still plainer the very next clause 
reads : “ whose fan is in his hand ; and he 
will thoroughly purge his floor, and 
gather his wheat into his garner, but he 


Baptism . 127 

will burn up the chaff with unquenchable 
fire.” 

“ John the Baptist” was not “John the 
Immerser,” but “John the Purifier.” He 
was recognized, I take it, as a sort of 
stern, rigid, uncompromising Puritan. 
The people came to his baptism, confess¬ 
ing their sins. He preaches plain truths ; 
tells them of One yet to be revealed, 
who will purify them more thoroughly 
by far. 

They would natifrally think of the 
prophecy four hundred years before — 
“ Behold, I will send my messenger, and 
he shall prepare the way before me ; and 
the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly 
come to his temple, even the messenger 
of the Covenant, whom ye delight in: 
behold, He shall come, saith the Lord of 
Hosts. But who may abide the day of 
his coming ? And who shall stand when 
he appeareth ? For he is like a refiner’s 


128 Baptism . 

fire, and like fullers’ soap, and he shall sit 

AS A REFINER AND PURIFIER OF SILVER ; 

and he shall purify the Sons of Levi, 
and purge them as gold and silver, that 
they may offer unto the Lord an offering 
in righteousness.” 

These prophecies — referring to the 
coming of Christ and particularly to his 
forerunner—might naturally lead them to 
expect some one who should come as a 
Purifier; and they would recognize John 
as fulfilling the prophecy. Hence that 
question of the priests and Levites who 
were sent to John to find out who he was. 
He was not Elias, nor the Christ, nor a 
prophet. “ Why baptizest thou, then, if 
thou be not the Christ, nor Elias, neither 
that prophet ? ” I know of no prophecy 
foretelling that either Christ or his 
messenger should immerse anybody; but 
various prophecies spoke of them as 
purifiers. For example : “ Then will I 


Baptism . 


129 


sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye 
shall be clean ”; “ So shall he sprinkle 
many nations.” I understand these proph¬ 
ecies to foretell, in figurative language, 
that Christ should come to purify. For 
ceremonial purification was so often by 
sprinkling, so generally by sprinkling, that 
the figure would be readily understood. 
And so the writer to the Hebrews speaks 
of having “ our hearts sprinkled from an 
evil conscience.” 

If it be asked just here, why “ sprinkle ” 
was not used in the Commission instead 
of “ baptize,” if ceremonial cleansing was 
to be expressed, it may be answered that 
sprinkling was sometimes of blood, some¬ 
times of ashes, not always of water. 
Christ wished to employ water hencefor¬ 
ward as the only emblem of purification ; 
and so he chose another word, already in 

WELL-ESTABLISHED USAGE — a WOrd that 

had been for centuries used to express 


130 Baptism. 

the idea of ceremonial cleansing by water, 
and whose original signification would 
suggest the thoroughness and complete¬ 
ness of the cleansing that was to be 
wrought. 

Understanding “ baptism ” to express 
this general idea, all is plain. Under¬ 
standing it to mean “ dip, plunge, or 
immerse,” everything is awkward and 
obscure. 

Take another passage : “ After these 
things came Jesus and his disciples into the 
land of Judaea; and there he tarried with 
them, and baptized. And John also was 
baptizing in Ainon, near to Salim, because 
there was much water there and they 
came and were baptized. . . . Then there 
arose a question between some of John’s 
disciples and the Jews about purifying. 
And they came unto John, and said unto 
him, Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond 
Jordan, to whom thou bearest witness, 


Baptism. 


131 

behold, the same baptizeth, and all men 
come to him.” This whole narrative indi¬ 
cates the close relationship between the 
two words “ baptize ” and “ purify.” Two 
views may be taken of it: either that the 
two terms are used interchangeably, as 
substantially synonymous; or that, with¬ 
out being synonymous, the baptizing 
which was understood to symbolize purity 
led to a discussion about purifying in 
general. 

Either view is inconsistent with the 
theory that regards baptism as a symbol 
of death and resurrection. For in that 
case, while the ordinance might have led 
to a general discussion of that topic, it is 
not easy to see how purifying could have 
become the subject of dispute at all. 

But I think that more than this is 
demanded by the exegesis of this passage. 
Two parties baptizing : a controversy as to 
whether they both had an equal right to 


132 


Baptism . 


do so ; the settlement of that controversy 
by John’s telling them that Christ had as 
good a right to baptize as he, and even 
a better right — that I can understand. 
Such a paraphrase makes the whole case* 
clear. But this supposes baptizing and 
purifying to be employed as substantially 
synonymous terms; and this, I cannot 
help thinking, is the true interpretation. 

“ But could not a general discussion on 
purification grow out of baptism,” it is 
asked, “ without supposing the two things 
to be the same ? ” Most certainly ; but 
what has their statement of the case, 
when they come to John, to do with a 
general discussion of that sort ? Nothing. 
The nature of the dispute is not specifi¬ 
cally stated, and can be only inferred 
from what precedes and from what fol¬ 
lows. The antecedent fact stated is that 
both Jesus and John were baptizing near 
together. The natural inference is that 


Baptism. 


133 


the dispute was as to the apparently con¬ 
flicting claims of the two ; and this infer¬ 
ence becomes irresistible when we discover 
that this was the only question which they 
brought to John and the only one to 
which he makes the slightest allusion in 
his reply. If they did have a discussion 
of the general subject of purification, 
their statement of the case to John is 
quite unaccountable, and his whole reply 
still more so. 

Read over the whole narrative as it is 
recorded in John 3 : 22-36, and you will 
see plainly that the facts are : — 

(1) Both Jesus and John were baptizing 
in JEnon. 

(2) There arose a question about puri¬ 
fying. 

(3) Some persons went to John to tell 
him that Jesus was baptizing; and they 
evidently had a feeling that he ought not 
to be doing it. 


134 


Baptism. 


(4) John assures them of Christ’s su¬ 
premacy in all things. 

That is the whole story ; and I am con¬ 
strained to believe that there was but one 
subject suggested by these verses, — which 
in one place is called baptizing, in another 
purifying, — the two words being used 
interchangeably as though substantially 
synonymous. 

What do the Baptist critics say to this ? 

Dr. Carson replies in substance : — “It 
is none of our business to explain the con¬ 
nection ! The historian states that they 
were immersing; and purification and im¬ 
mersion we know are not the same: purify 
is a general term : baptize is not.” If this 
style of argument is not what logicians 
call “a begging of the question,” we con¬ 
fess that we do not know what would be. 

“But' does not the historian say that 
John was baptizing at y£non, because 
there was ‘ much water ’ there ? And 


Baptism . 135 

does not that indicate immersion as the 
method of his baptism ? ” 

I answer : — 

1. Every scholar knows that the word 
“.<Enon ” means “ fountains ” or “ springs.” 
The springs are still there, as they were 
two thousand years ago. 

2. Any one who knows even a very 
little Greek can discover that the words 
translated “much water” are in the plural, 
and literally translated would read “ many 
waters.” 

3. Even a Baptist minister would need 
neither a great body of water, nor many 
springs, even for purposes of immersion. 
Hence an allusion to either “much water” 
or “many waters” is not at all necessary 
to explain the simple fact of baptism, 
whatever the method of it may have 
been. 

4. For some other reason, therefore, 
than baptism did John choose this loca- 


Baptism. 


136 

tion: and it is not difficult to find a reason 
far more satisfactory. Immense throngs 
of people waited on the ministry of this 
mighty preacher. Many of them came 
from afar. It was, so to speak, a great 
“camp-meeting” that was held at vEnon. 
The “ many springs ” would be in requi¬ 
sition for accommodating both man and 
beast. 

5. John never baptized, except where 
there was running water. He would have 
revolted from the thought of a baptistery. 
It must be “living” water. Hence the 
Jordan. But one of the living springs at 
^Enon might have answered his purpose, 
no matter what his manner of baptizing. 
For myself, I am of the opinion that all 
his Jewish education would lead him to 
dip a bunch of hyssop into the running 
water, and sprinkle it upon the people in 
token of their turning away from their 
sins unto the living God. The words 


Baptism. 


37 


of the Psalmist were familiar to him: 
“ Purge me with hyssop , and I shall be 
clean.” It was so often by sprinkling of 
the hyssop that cleansing came under 
the law. He had read the prophecy, “I 
will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye 
shall be clean.” He had often heard that 
other prophecy, “ So shall he sprinkle 
many nations ” ; and although he knew 
full well, as his preaching shows, that he 
did not understand any outward ceremony 
as having in itself saving or cleansing 
power, yet when an outward ceremony 
symbolizing inward cleansing was to be 
used he would most naturally employ the 
ceremony which from time immemorial 
had been used to express it. 


LETTER X. 


N your reply to my last, you say: 
‘‘Your discussion of the baptism 
at .Enon is quite satisfactory to 
me on the whole ; but there is one point 
upon which I would like to have a little 
more light. It is this: some of the Bap¬ 
tist writers tell me that pollci hudata 
means more properly ‘ much water ’ in 
a body than many fountains, and they 
quote some examples to illustrate that use 
of it. What answer would you make to 
that ? ” 

To, this I reply: — 

i. There is not at the present time any 
“body” of water at .Enon, nor any indi¬ 
cation that there has ever been, in historic 
times, such a body : but there are plenty 
of springs 







Baptism. 


x 39 


2. Admitting that polla hudata may be 
used in speaking of a body of water and 
be rendered, in a general way, “much 
water,” it is altogether likely that the 
conception of, the writer would be quite 
as well expressed by rendering the words 
“ many waters,” as they are in Rev. 1:15 
and 19:6. 

3. That the expression may be used in 
speaking of a number of fountains is en¬ 
tirely clear from a passage in 2 Chron. 
32 : 3, 4. The passage reads thus : “ He 
[Hezekiah] took counsel with his princes 
and his mighty men to stop the waters 
of the fountains which were without the 
city: and they did help him. So there 
was gathered much people together, who 
stopped all the fountains, and the brook 
that ran through the midst of the land, 
saying, Why should the kings of Assyria 
come, and find much water?" In the 
Greek Septuagint the words are polla 


140 Baptism . 

hudata , which seems evidently to refer 
to these fountains and the brook — no 
body of water being spoken of. 

I come now to speak of the baptism of 
the three thousand on the day of Pente¬ 
cost. This is easily understood upon the 
theory that the word baptizo was under¬ 
stood to mean what I have proved it to 
mean at the time of Christ’s coming and 
before. It is an account not easy to be 
understood upon the Baptist assumption 
that the word “ baptize means always 
immerse.” This was a large number to 
be immersed, as all admit. Many of them 
were strangers who had come to the feast 
— “Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites,” 
and all the rest whose nationality is men¬ 
tioned in the Acts. It is not at all likely 
that they would be prepared with conven¬ 
ient changes of raiment for immersion 
and still less likely that they were im¬ 
mersed in a state of nudity. Such indel- 


icacy and superstition had not developed 
themselves at that day. 

And then consider the circumstances: 
They were at Jerusalem. There is no 
natural body of water there or near 
there. The “brook Kedron” is ordina¬ 
rily an almost dry watercourse. Unless 
the seasons were entirely different then 
from what they are now — of which there 
is no proof and no probability — there 
would have been only a little rill of water 
at the time of Pentecost. There were 
therefore no facilities about Jerusalem for 
immersion, except in the reservoirs of 
water used for drinking and cooking. To 
conceive of the apostles baptizing in these 
is preposterous. Forbidden by common 
decency, it would have been especially 
forbidden by the violent and unyielding 
superstition of the Jews, even had they 
been favorably inclined towards the 
apostles and their religion. But it 


142 Baptism. 

would have been especially forbidden by 
the deadly hostility to the new faith which 
then prevailed. They would not have al¬ 
lowed their best friends to be immersed 
in these pools; and the disciples of that 
Christ whom they had just crucified would 
by all means have been prevented from 
propagating their religion in the use of 
any body of water under their control. 

I have studied this subject in Jerusalem, 
and I cannot see how any one familiar 
with the topography of the city, and 
considering the times of violent persecu¬ 
tion which erelong scattered the Church 
to the ends of the earth, can for a 
moment accept with any assurance the 
belief .that the three thousand were im¬ 
mersed on the day of Pentecost; there 
being no natural body of water to furnish 
facilities and no artificial reservoirs to 
which access would not have been utterly 
impossible. 


Baptism. 


143 


And then the baptism of the jailer. It 
has always been difficult for the Baptist 
theory to provide for that baptism. Their 
sole dependence is upon the word baptizo. 
“That means nothing but immerse: and 
the historian says that the jailer was im¬ 
mersed. Deny it, if you dare! It is 
none of our business to find a baptis¬ 
tery ! ” This is our Baptist scholar’s 
method of disposing of the matter! 

But we have already proved beyond 
all successful contradiction that in the 
Septuagint and in the New Testament 
usage the word baptizo is used to express 
ceremonial purification by water without 
reference to mode and in cases where 
immersion is entirely out of the question; 
so that the. whole foundation of such an 
assumption is entirely gone. 

We understand baptism, then, to be a 
ceremony of cleansing and co 7 isecration to a 
holy service. This makes the formula of 


144 


Baptism . 


baptism plain : — “I baptize thee in the 
name of the Father, the Son, and the 
Holy Spirit,” better translated, “to the 
name,” etc. (The proposition is eis, 
which is translated “to” about five hun¬ 
dred times in the New Testament.) We 
are thus set apart to the service of God 
and thus we consecrate our children. 

The passage in i Cor. 10:2 becomes 
easy of interpretation : — “ They were all 
baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in 
the sea.” Baptist writers are zealous to 
find immersion here ; and so they sup¬ 
pose that the sea being on their two sides, 
the cloud must have been above them; 
thus they were enveloped. This is mere 
theory ; and the unfortunate thing about 
it is that the history states that the cloud 
was behind them and not above them. 
Certainly it was not also before them. 
On the other hand I have heard a zeal¬ 
ous paedobaptist suggest that the spray 


Baptism. 


145 


of the sea probably sprinkled them, and 
thus they were baptized! It is more 
sensible to find here no reference what¬ 
ever to the act of baptism, but to the 
understood significance of it as an act of 
consecration expressive of our faith in 
Him to whom we thus are consecrated. 
As in our baptism we are set apart to the 
service of God, promising obedience and 
fidelity, so were the children of Israel set 
apart to follow Moses as their divinely 
appointed leader. In the cloud which 
protected them and in the sea which 
opened to allow their passage was the 
evidence of his divine appointment: and 
in these manifestations they saw that it 
was safe to follow him. So were they 
baptized unto him. 

Before closing this letter I wish to call 
your attention to another point, which 
seems to me to fall in most happily with 
the idea of cleansing as conveyed by the 


146 


Baptism. 


word baptize. It is this, that this view of 
the matter accords with the true concep¬ 
tion of the substantial unity of the two 
dispensations. It is not necessary that 
we should go into the matter very largely 
to argue the substantial oneness of the 
Church from the beginning. There has 
been but one plan of salvation, but one 
way of pardon, but one system of truth, 
but one Church from Abraham down. 

Christ said:—“I am not come to 
destroy, but to fulfill.” Old Testament 
and New Testament make together one 
Bible. 

The coming of Christ is the common 
center of both. Abraham was saved by 
Christ as really as those to whom Peter 
preached at the Pentecost. 

Under the Old Dispensation there were 
two ordinances, Circumcision and the 
Passover. Under the New Dispensation 
there are two, Baptism and the Lord’s 


Baptism. 


H 7 


Supper. The two great doctrines of both 
dispensations are the same, justification 
and sanctification—forgiveness and holi¬ 
ness— pardon and purity. 

Standing at the middle point—the 
great center of all the centuries, The 
Cross of Christ, we see it written — 
“ Without the shedding of blood there is 
no remission of sins.” The Passover was 
the feast commemorative of deliverance 
by the blood of sprinkling; the Lord’s 
Supper shows forth the Lord’s death till 
the end of time and commemorates our 
deliverance by the blood of sprinkling. 
Both speak of pardon. 

Circumcision symbolized purity — the 
putting away of the filthiness of the flesh 
and spirit. Many passages so represent: — 
“ Circumcise, therefore, the foreskin of 
your heart:” “He is not a Jew, who is 
one outwardly; neither is that circum¬ 
cision, which is outward in the flesh : but 


148 


Baptism. 


he is a Jew who is one inwardly ; and 
circumcision is that of the heart, in the 
spirit, and not in the letter : ” “ We are 
the circumcision, who worship God in the 
Spirit.” 

Now, if baptism, under the New Tes¬ 
tament Dispensation, is also ceremonial 
cleansing, the unity is complete; but if it 
is burial, and not purification, the unity is 
broken. 

I present this argument — not as con¬ 
clusive in itself, but as strongly presump¬ 
tive in favor of the view which has been 
presented, and as confirmatory of the 
unequivocal proofs already submitted, 
showing that baptism means cleansing 
and not immersion. The unity is not 
broken. 

If you will be kind enough‘to call my 
attention, in your next letter, to any 
points upon which you would wish to have 
more light, or to any difficulties which you 


Baptism. 


' 149 


may find in accepting the general teaching 
of these letters, I will be better able to 
present just the things which are neces¬ 
sary to clear up all the difficulties in the 
case. Truth is always in harmony with 
itself ; and whenever one comes to occupy 
the right standpoint this harmony 
appears. 


LETTER XI. 



N reply to my tenth letter you 
say: “You have spoken some¬ 
what of the use of the preposi¬ 
tion eis, upon which the Baptist writers 
have a good deal to say; but I would be 
glad to have you discuss that matter of 
the prepositions which are translated 
‘ into * and ‘ out of ’ more fully, so that 
if I accept your views upon the main 
question (as I think I shall be compelled 
to) I may be able to meet the arguments 
of my Baptist brethren on that part of 
the subject; for you know, as well as I 
do, how much stress they lay upon it.” 
You say also : “ Perhaps you are right 
in what you maintain—that the way in 
which the apostles baptized settles noth¬ 
ing as to the law of baptism, and does 

150 






Baptism. 


I5i 

not, therefore, form any absolute rule for 
our direction ; but I am not sure as yet 
that I am prepared to follow you fully in 
that line of your discussion.” 

I am glad of your frankness; this is 
what above all else I appreciate — that 
you should criticise thoroughly every 
word I write; and that you should yield 
to no argument that you. can find any 
fault with. As you said in one of your 
first letters to me, “ Nothing will do us 
any good but the truth.” 

With your permission I will take up 
your last difficulty first. What I hold is 
this, that even if it could be shown that 
the apostles invariably immersed (which I 
by no means accept as a fact) still it would 
not result from that fact alone, that we 
are under any obligation to immerse. If 
the law of baptism requires immersion, 
then it is our duty to practice immersion 
whether the apostles did or not; if the 


152 


Baptism. 


law does not so require, we are bound 
only by what it does require. The law 
of God is perfect and covers the whole 
ground. There is no such thing as a 
work of supererogation. There is no 
virtue in “ will-worship.” 

In a former letter I gave various in¬ 
stances in which the manner of doing 
things is entirely different from what it 
was in those days; showing that we had 
just as good a right to do them in our 
way as they had to do them in their way. 
We recognize and acknowledge this in 
respect to our modes of preaching, of 
dress, of eating and drinking, and many 
other like things. So far as there is any¬ 
thing said on the subject, it seems prob¬ 
able that they celebrated the Lord’s Sup¬ 
per every Lord’s day; as it is entirely 
certain that they always partook of it 
reclining , but we do not hold ourselves 
under obligation to have communion 


Baptis7n. 


153 


every week. Nor do Christian people at 
the present day make their own practice 
in such matters a law for others. Some 
sit around a table to receive the commun¬ 
ion ; some receive it sitting in their, seats 
at church; some receive it kneeling; 
some have communion every Sabbath; 
some every month ; some once in two or 
three months; some once a year. Some 
churches almost invariably practice 
sprinkling; but they do not, by so doing, 
declare that the Baptists are wrong in 
practicing immersion. 

If the example of the apostles settles 
just how baptism should be administered, 
then we might conclude that it was only 
done properly when it was at a river, or, 
to say the least, out-of-doors. There is 
no instance in the New Testament of 
baptism in a baptistery: and if what the 
apostles did makes law for us our Bap¬ 
tist brethren who use a baptistery have 


54 


Baptism. 


certainly gone astray. I think, upon full 
consideration of the whole case, we must 
agree that the law of the ordinance 
itself and alone must settle the question. 
If it has been shown, beyond a reasonable 
question, that the word baptizo was well 
understood to express the general idea 
of ceremonial cleansing by water, then 
that is all that we need to know ; beyond 
that it is a matter of interesting study 
and interpretation but of no vital con¬ 
sequence. 

As, however, the point to which you 
call my attention — whether the preposi¬ 
tions used in connection with the ordi¬ 
nance of baptism, as set forth in the New 
Testament, prove immersion — is so often 
referred to by our good Baptist brethren, 
I am very willing to go into the investiga¬ 
tion : and think you will find that the 
facts do not make their position so strong 
as they seem to suppose. 


Baptism. 


155 


Take, first, the rendering of eis as 
meaning “into.” I wish to make the 
discussion as brief as I can ; so I will give 
you the bare facts with little comment. 
This preposition eis which is appealed 
to to prove that persons who were bap¬ 
tized by the apostles and by John the 
Baptist went into the water is, in our 
translation, rendered about five hundred 
times “ into,” and about the same number 
of times it is rendered “ to.” So that no 
argument based upon this preposition 
can have very much force to maintain the 
theory of immersion. If you were to 
look into “ The Englishman’s Greek 
Concordance,” you would find that in 
many of these examples the rendering 
might be changed from one to the other 
without any violence. But in some it 
would be quite impossible to use “ into ” ; 
such as : “His disciples were come to 
the other side ” ; “ Go thou to the sea, 


15 6 Baptism . 

and cast a hook ”; “ Go home to thy 
friends ”; etc. 

There is one unequivocal method of 
saying that a man went into the water, or 
into his house, or into a city ; and that is 
to use a verb compounded with the prep- 
position eis as a prefix, either alone 
or followed by the preposition. Thus in 
the twentieth chapter of John, beginning 
with the 3d verse, we have this passage: 

“ Peter, therefore, went forth, and that 
other disciple, and came to ( erchonto eis) 
the sepulchre. So they ran both to¬ 
gether ; and the other disciple did outrun 
Peter, and came first to the sepulchre 
(came to ^elthe eis). And he, stooping 
down, saw the linen clothes lying : yet 
went he not in (went vsx—FAS-eltheri). 
Then cometh Simon Peter following him, 
and went into the sepulchre (went into= 
YAS-elthen eis). Then went in also that 
other disciple (went in=Eis-^///^) which 


Baptism . 


157 


came first to the sepulchre (‘ which came 
to ’ is, literally, ‘ the one coming to '=Jio 
elthon eis).” I quote this paragraph in 
full, at the risk of marring my letter with 
more Greek than I like to introduce, so 
that you may see how the distinction is 
made between “ going to ” and “ going 
into” a place. 

Now what I wish to add is this: that 

this ONLY UNEQUIVOCAL METHOD OF EX¬ 
PRESSING THE IDEA OF GOING INTO IS 
NEVER USED IN SPEAKING OF GOING INTO 
THE WATER FOR BAPTISM. 

You see plainly from the verses which 
I have quoted that eis by itself does not 
convey the meaning of “into.” Three 
times in this short paragraph “ coming to ”. 
the sepulchre is expressed, always by eis 
alone; and three times the idea of going 
“into” is also expressed, and always by 
a different method. And these examples 
illustrate the law of the Greek language. 


158 


Baptism. 


If it be true that the eunuch was bap¬ 
tized by immersion, it is not because it is 
so recorded. For admitting that they 
both went into the water, that might 
easily have been without any reference to 
immersion. • The style of dress, a loose 
flowing robe, was very favorable for step¬ 
ping into the water; and the sandals that 
were worn were removed in the easiest 
possible way. And the baptism might 
easily have been by pouring or sprinkling. 
Some of the oldest pictures in the cata¬ 
combs of Rome represent the baptism of 
those days as having been performed by 
pouring water upon the person standing 
in the water. Everything must be deter¬ 
mined in the end by the meaning of the 
word itself. Assuming that they both 
went down into the water, that does not 
prove that it was for the purpose of im¬ 
mersion ; after they were in the water, 
we are informed that Philip baptized him. 


Baptism. 


159 


And as we have found that beyond all 
question the word “baptized” was broad 
enough to cover every method of cere¬ 
monial cleansing — from sprinkling to im¬ 
mersion — we cannot affirm that the 
eunuch was immersed. The running 
water was reached and it may have been 
sprinkled or poured upon him. Their 
being in the water proves nothing as to 
the mode of the baptism. 

The prepositions which are translated 
“ out of ” in like manner determine no¬ 
thing ; as you will see from a study of 
their use in the New Testament as well 
as from the Greek language generally. 
The first of these prepositions is apo , 
which is used by Matthew and also by 
Mark in their account of the baptism of 
Christ. 

This preposition properly means “from ” 
and not “out of.” Some dictionaries do 
not give “ out of ” as one of its meanings; 


160 Baptism . 

and it is very doubtful, to say the least, 
whether it should ever be translated so. 
It is used more than six hundred times in 
the New Testament and only some forty 
times translated “out of.” I am not haz¬ 
arding much in saying that “from” would 
be a better rendering in every one of 
these instances. In the Revised Version 
this is the rendering which is given in 
almost all if not every one of the cases. 
Take a few of the examples and it will be 
seen that the change is fully justified. 
“The lightning cometh out of the East ” ; 
“ They intreated him to depart out of their 
coasts”; “Coming out of the country”; 
“ Lot went out of Sodom ” ; “ Letters out 
of Judea ” ; etc. “ From ” might quite as 
well be used as “out of.” 

The learned gentlemen who served the 
American Bible Union in making their 
version have generally shown much criti¬ 
cal ability : and where their Baptist views 


Baptism. 


161 


— shall I say prejudices? — do not warp 
their judgment it is very much to be 
respected. Their treatment of apo is an 
illustration of both their critical ability 
in general and their denominational pre¬ 
judices in particular. For finding apo 
translated forty times in our common 
version by “out of,” they correct it by 
substituting “from ” in nearly every other 
instance, except these two which refer to 
baptism! The remaining four passages 
in which they leave it are such as “van¬ 
ished out of their sight,’’ where they 
might as well have said “ vanished from 
their sight,” and three others of equal in¬ 
significance ! It would not do to correct 
every other one of the whole forty and 
leave these two Baptist turrets solitary 
and alone lest the reason of it should be 
too obvious ! As it is, they have scarcely 
saved themselves from the charge of mak¬ 
ing a sectarian translation. 


162 


Baptism . 


The preposition ek is the other prep¬ 
osition which is rendered “ out of,” and 
this rendering is more plausible. All I 
wish to say is that this is so often ren¬ 
dered “ from ” that no strong argument 
can be drawn from it to prove that the 
baptized had been into the water and 
come “out of” it. You would find, if 
you cared to look it up, that even ek is 
rendered “from” about one hundred and 
seventy times in our Common Version 
against about one hundred and forty times 
where it is rendered “ out of.” 

The certain way of stating that one 
went out of a place may be seen from 
the following examples: — 

Mark 5:8. “ Come out of the man ” 

( ex-elthe ek tou anthropoii). 

Mark 7:31. “ Going out from the coasts 
of Tyre ” ( ex-elthon ek ton horion Turoii). 

Luke 4:22. “ Going out of his mouth ” 

( ek-poreuomenois ek ton stomatos auton). 


Baptism . 163 

You observe that in these cases the 
preposition ek (or ex before a vowel) pre¬ 
cedes the verb as a part of it and also 
precedes the noun : a construction similar 
to that which we found in the case of the 
preposition eis where the idea of enter¬ 
ing into was expressed. There is no case 
where this unequivocal manner of saying 
that one goes “out of” a place is found 
in connection with baptism. We are com¬ 
pelled, therefore, to the conclusion that 
there is no certain evidence in the New 
Testament that any one either went into 
the water or came out of it in connection 
with baptism^ 

But I repeat it, if there were, it still 
remains unproved that the baptism was 
by immersion ; and if it were, it still does 
not, by any means, show that in the judg¬ 
ment of the apostles it could not have 
been performed in some other way. The 
fact that my neighbor, Dr. G., has not in 


164 


Baptism. 


ten years baptized any person except by 
sprinkling does not show that he con¬ 
siders no other method to be valid bap¬ 
tism. 

The statements of Matthew (3:6), 
“They were baptized of him in the Jor¬ 
dan,” and of Mark (1:5), “They were 
all baptized of him in the river of Jor¬ 
dan,” are often appealed to by our Baptist 
brethren as settling the question in favor 
of their theory. But suppose we admit 
that these are examples of undoubted im¬ 
mersion (as we would be willing to if we 
could honestly) — what then ? We do not 
deny that immersion is one of the proper 
methods of baptism coming within the 
range of the term chosen by our Lord. 
Naaman’s case shows that it is ; but then 
the immersion of these persons in the 
river Jordan would not by any means 
prove that that was considered the only 
method of baptism. The meaning of the 


Baptism. 


65 


word itself must settle that question. If 
that requires immersion, our Baptist breth¬ 
ren are right ; if it does not, as I think 
has been plainly shown, they are mis¬ 
taken. We do not object to their practic¬ 
ing immersion, as they prefer to do : we 
object to their claim that immersion is 
the only baptism. And if we should ad¬ 
mit that these passages plainly describe 
immersion, it would not at all weaken our 
argument nor at all substantiate their 
claim. To make that claim good they 
must prove that no other method is allow¬ 
able. That they can only do by showing 
that the word itself means nothing else. 


LETTER XII. 



N your letter which has just come 
to hand you are kind enough to 
express yourself satisfied upon 
the various points which have thus far been 
discussed ; and you send me a “ list of 
passages to be expounded, and of argu¬ 
ments and objections of Baptist writers to 
be considered, in order to relieve your 
mind from the difficulties which deter 
you from a full acceptance of the views 
which are held by those who differ from 
them.” 

The first passage which you mention is 
Luke 12:50: “ I have a baptism to be 
baptized with ; and how am I straitened 
till it be accomplished.” This passage is 
made much of by the Baptist writers. 
Especially do they quote with great confi- 





Baptism. 


67 


dence Doddridge’s paraphase of it: “ I 
have, in the meantime, a most dreadful 
baptism to be baptized with, and know 
that I shall shortly, as it were, be bathed 
in blood and plunged in the most over¬ 
whelming distress.” 

I accept this paraphrase, and find no 
difficulty in harmonizing it with the view 
hitherto presented. In the first part of 
this correspondence attention was called 
to the fact that wherever the word baptizo 
is used figuratively in classical writings it 
is always in a bad sense. This example 
illustrates the same usage. 

A passage in the Septuagint, to which 
reference was made, but the consideration 
of which was postponed, is equally in 
point. It is found in Is. 21:4: “ Ini¬ 
quity overwhelms me.” Matt. 20 : 22, 23 
and Mark 10 : 38, 39 belong to the same 
class. In all these passages the classical 
usage (where the word is employed figura- 


Baptism. 


168 

tively) is retained. The literal sense has 
undergone a change — the word never 
being employed either in the Old Testa¬ 
ment or the New to express literal immer¬ 
sion. But a figurative immersion in calam¬ 
ities, sufferings, or sins is expressed by 
it in the Bible just as in the classical 
writings. In its sacred or ecclesiastical 
sense it expresses the idea of ceremonial 
cleansing with water, and figuratively the 
idea of spiritual cleansing, of which the 
ceremonial was a type. Outside of that 
it is used in its classical sense. 

And in this there is nothing inconsist¬ 
ent with the well-known laws of language. 
A word which has passed into a new 
sense does not necessarily lose its old one, 
but often retains it, both senses being 
carried along together for all subsequent 
time. Thus, for example, bapto means 
both “dip” and “dye.” The same writ¬ 
ers use it in both senses. Were one to be 


Baptism. 


169 


called on to translate the sentence, “ He 
dyed it red, by dipping it three times in 
blood,” it would be perfectly proper to 
use the same word bapto in both parts 
of the sentence. Pneuma means both 
“ wind ” and “ spirit,” and may be used 
by the same author in both senses. Were 
you to translate this sentence into Greek, 
“The wind bloweth where it listeth, and 
thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst 
not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it 
goeth ; so is every one that is born of the 
Spirit ,” you would be entirely justified in 
using pnenma in both parts of the para¬ 
graph. Exactly this is what John d # oes 
(see 3 : 8). 

Various other examples might be given 
of a similar kind. 

The facts, then, in respect to the use of 
baptizo , I understand to be these : — 

(1) In classical literature its meaning 
(as well as we can express it in one word) 


170 Baptism. 

is “ immerse,” without reference to ma¬ 
terial or result. 

(2) Its figurative meaning (correspond¬ 
ing to this) is “ immerse ” or “ over¬ 
whelm,” but always in a bad sense. 

(3) Its secondary sense, found in the 
Septuagint, the New Testament, and the 
writings of the Jews and the Christian 
Fathers, is to cleanse ceremonially by 
water. 

(4) This secondary sense is also used 
figuratively to express the idea of spiritual 
cleansing, as by the Holy Spirit and with 
fire. 

The last three uses are found illustrated 
in the Bible ; the first never. 

You are so well acquainted with the 
laws of language, from your teaching of 
the English, that you understand that it 
is entirely proper to speak of a “sec¬ 
ondary” sense as “literal.” Some have 
failed to distinguish between a secondary 


Baptism. 


171 

meaning and a figurative meaning. Any 
word having both a primary and a sec¬ 
ondary meaning may be used figuratively 
in either. For example, take bapto , mean¬ 
ing primarily to “dip” or “plunge,” sec¬ 
ondarily to “ dye ” : it may be used figura¬ 
tively in either of its senses. Thus we 
may say of a man that he is “plunged in 
iniquity,” or that he is “ dyed in iniquity.” 
A secondary sense of a word is one thing; 
a figurative sense is another. 

Another of the passages to which you 
invite my attention is John 3:5:“ Except 
a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, 
he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” 

I am aware that this passage has been 
appealed to in defense of Baptist views. 
Indeed it would not be easy to enumerate 
the absurdities that have been imposed 
upon this verse. Out of its misinterpre¬ 
tation have grown baptismal regeneration 
and all sorts of fanciful analogies, exactly 


17 2 


Baptism . 


suited to some of the centuries through 
which the Church has passed — such as 
the talk of being “born of the womb of 
the waters,” and all that. 

Now to my mind there is no more allu¬ 
sion to baptism in this verse than to the 
planet Mars or the French Revolution. 
It is simply natural birth that is here 
spoken of. Being “ born of water ” was 
without doubt a well-known form of speech 
which Christ used in that sense. Jesus 
said to Nicodemus : “ Except a man be 
born again, he cannot see the kingdom of 
God.” Nicodemus replied: “ How can a 
man be born when he is old ? Can he 
enter the second time into his mother’s 
womb, and be born?” 

And here I beg leave to vindicate Nico¬ 
demus against the imputations upon his 
common sense which are found in .so 
many of the commentaries ; and in like 
manner the annotators have done injus- 


Baptism. 


173 


tice to the woman of Samaria, who appears 
in the next chapter. Christ used figura¬ 
tive language which both of these per¬ 
sons understood well to be figurative. 
We do, with all our Occidental dullness 
and unpoetical temperament. Much more 
did these Orientals, who are wont to talk 
in figures and dispute in figures on all 
subjects. 

Nicodemus simply employs the same 
figure of speech that Christ does, and 
replies : “ How can a man be born when 
he is old ? He cannot enter a second 
time into his mother’s womb, and be born 
— of course, I know that is not what you 
mean; explain a little farther.” 

Jesus answered: “Except a man be 
born naturally, and also spiritually, he 
cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 
That which is born of the flesh is flesh; 
and that which is born of the Spirit 
is spirit.” “Born of water” in the first 


174 


Baptism. 


part of the sentence and “ born of the 
flesh ” in the latter part (for it is but one 
paragraph) are evidently parallel and equiv¬ 
alent expressions. The latter is simply 
epexegetical of the former. Let the 
whole paragraph be read together, just as 
it will be found in any paragraph Bible, 
and the meaning is obvious : “ Verily, 
verily, I say unto thee, except a man be 
born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot 
enter into the kingdom of God. That 
which is born of the flesh is flesh ; and 
that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 
Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must 
be born again.” 

Those who find any baptism here are 
compelled to find three births : “ born of 
the flesh ” (natural birth), “ born of the 
water ” (baptism), “ born of the Spirit ” 
(regeneration). According to this exege¬ 
sis, Christ should have said to Nicodemus, 
not, “Ye must be born again,” but, “ Yq 


Baptism. 


175 


must be born twice more ; as yet you have 
been born only of the flesh — hereafter 
you must be born of the water, and of the 
Spirit.” 

And why of the water first; if it be 
baptism ? Is this Christ’s way of putting 
things to one already steeped in ritual¬ 
ism ? Baptism first? — the Holy Spirit 
afterwards ? So Alexander Campbell in¬ 
terpreted this passage. I wish that he 
had been the only one that had made the 
mistake of finding baptism here; but with 
all due deference to the large number of 
them, there never was a more fanciful 
exegesis known to the Middle Ages. 
The reading of a single volume upon 
obstetrics — even had they been thus 
compelled to read one volume less 
on systematic theology — would have 
suggested to the commentators the true 
meaning of this passage, upon which so 
many of them have stumbled. On the 


176 


Baptism . 


interpretation of this verse I will put the 
doctors of medicine against the doctors 
of divinity, and they will vote them down 
by an overwhelming majority and tell 
them that this expression was undoubtedly 
a well-known mode of speaking of natural 
birth and nothing else. 

The next passage upon your list, of 
which you request an exposition, is 1 Cor. 
15:29: “ Else what shall they do, who are 
baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not 
at all ? Why are they then baptized for 
the dead ? ” 

This must be admitted to be one of the 
most obscure passages in the Bible ; at 
least if we judge from the great variety 
of interpretations which it has received. 
I do not propose to refer to them all, but 
to three which are appealed to in favor 
of Baptist views. The first would para¬ 
phrase the words thus : “ Why do we sub 
. ject ourselves to all manner of sufferings 


Baptism. 


1 77 


such as constantly overwhelm us in hope 
of the glory to come if there is for us no 
resurrection and so no glory to come ? ” 
The second thus : “ Why are we over¬ 
whelmed in grief and buried in sorrow on 
behalf of the dead if there is for them no. 
future life and all their pains and miseries 
have come to an end ? ” The third thus : 
“ Why do we, by our baptism, represent 
resurrection as well as burial, if there be 
no resurrection ? ” 

Of the first two interpretations, or any 
others, which in like manner make the 
baptism figurative, it is only necessary to 
say that in that case the passage is simply 
another example belonging to the same 
class with Luke 12:50, which has been 
already explained and shown to give no 
support to the Baptist view of the baptis¬ 
mal rite, etc. 

Of the third interpretation it is, per¬ 
haps, enough to say that the words em- 


78 


Baptism. 


ployed do not seem to be at all a natural 
method of expressing that idea, and that 
the verse which follows has no legitimate 
connection with any such allusion to 
the mode of baptism. If the paraphrase 
above is correct, why did not the apostle 
say, “ Why, then, are we baptized for the 
resurrection ? ” instead of saying, “ Why 
are we, then, baptized for the dead ? ” 
And the utter want of connection between 
the twenty-ninth and thirtieth verses is 
obvious. Substitute the paraphrase and 
the two verses read thus : “ Why do we 
by our baptism represent resurrection; 
and why stand we in jeopardy every 
hour ? ” I see no connection, but every¬ 
thing disjointed. 

To my mind there is in this passage no 
allusion to immersion, literal or figurative. 
Baptism is not spoken of with any refer¬ 
ence to the mode of the ordinance, but 
simply with reference to the fact that it 


Baptism. 


179 


was the outward profession of allegiance 
to Christ. A man began his Christian 
course by that profession. It cost him his 
life oftentimes to make it. Many lived 
but a few days after they had taken this 
oath of allegiance to their divine Lord. 
It was to be baptized to-day and die 
to-morrow. To put on Christ by baptism 
was to put on the robes of the dead. 
“Now if there be no resurrection of the 
dead,” says Paul — “if there be for us no 
future life, what mean those among you 
who from time to time are baptized for 
the sake of being enrolled with the dead, 
as they know they will be immediately 
upon their professing Christ ? Why are 
they, then, baptized for the dead ? Why 
do they make any profession of faith in 
Christ at all ? With such profession their 
life here ends, and there is no life here¬ 
after. Why are they such madmen, and 
why are we all such madmen, who stand 


180 Baptism. 

in jeopardy every hour ? Let us eat and 
drink, for to-morrow we die. If in this 
life only we have hope in Christ, we are of 
all men the most miserable. We lose 
this world and gain nothing beyond.” 

Such is my paraphrase of this verse 
and its connection, in which there appears 
no allusion to any mode of baptism ; but 
only to the perils of a Christian profes¬ 
sion such as baptism involved. 


LETTER XIII. 



QUOTE from your reply to my 
twelfth letter: “Your exposition 
of John 3 : 5 has interested me 
deeply, and although it was entirely new 
to me it carries upon its own face evi¬ 
dence that it is the true one. It makes 
the whole connection plain and obvious. 
I have read that part of your letter to two 
of my medical acquaintances, and they say 
they have no doubt that you have the right 
of it. I want to know how you got hold 
of it. Have any of the commentaries 
suggested it ? and is there anything any¬ 
where in the Bible to confirm such an 
interpretation ? I ask both of these ques¬ 
tions more out of curiosity than anything 
else; for it seems to me so manifestly 
true that it needs no confirmation.” 


181 





182 


Baptism . 


Let me say: the interpretation was 
not evolved entirely out of my own con¬ 
sciousness. Some years ago I saw in the 
Comprehensive Commentary a quotation 
from some old commentator (whose name 
I have forgotten) of three or four lines, 
suggesting this interpretation. No argu¬ 
ment was offered to maintain that view, 
but the suggestion struck me with so 
much force that I set myself to examin¬ 
ing the matter, and was convinced of the 
soundness of the exposition; since then 
I have never had a doubt upon the sub¬ 
ject. 

As to your other inquiry, whether there 
is anywhere in the Bible anything to con¬ 
firm that interpretation, I answer, I think 
there are two or three passages in the Old 
Testament which show that such a mode 
of speech would have been readily under¬ 
stood as referring to natural birth and 
nothing else. I quote but one of them, 


Baptism . 


183 

Is. 48:1: “ Hear ye this, oh house of 
Jacob, which are called by the name of 
Israel, and are come forth out of the 
waters of Judah.” The natural descend¬ 
ants of Judah are here spoken of without 
doubt. 

But the arguments against referring 
the passage in John to baptism are too 
many to allow us to entertain for a mo¬ 
ment that idea. One of them, that does 
not appear from our translation, is that 
the expression, “ Except a man be born 
again ,” means properly “ Except a man 
be born from above.” This rendering you 
will find in the margin, and no other ren¬ 
dering should ever have been thought of. 
The Greek word which is found here is 
anothen , and means everywhere else “ from 
above,” and only that. Birth from above 
is simply spiritual birth, not ritual. Be¬ 
sides, baptism is nowhere else ever spoken 
of as a birth. And you will see that if it 


184 


Baptism. 


is objected to my interpretation of the 
words, “ born of water,” that they are 
never used anywhere else, the same ob¬ 
jection might be urged still more emphatic¬ 
ally against the common interpretation. 
It is not strange that an expression of 
that sort, referring to natural birth, should 
be found but once; but if baptism is to be 
understood as a new birth , it is quite unac¬ 
countable that it should be thus spoken of 
only once, and that so blindly. And more 
than all is the intrinsically absurd teach¬ 
ing that there can be no salvation without 
baptism ! For, if this expression refers to 
baptism at all, it is plainly taught that no 
one can enter into the kingdom of God 
who is not baptized. Words could not be 
more emphatic — “ Except a man be born 
of water and the Spirit, he cannot see 
the kingdom of God ! ” Being baptized, 
according to this interpretation, is just as 
absolutely required as to be born of the 


Baptism . 


185 


Spirit. The more you look at the aigu- 
ment the plainer it will appear that the 
expression, “born of the water,” cannot 
be interpreted as referring to anything 
but natural birth. 

I come now to the consideration of the 
passage in the sixth of Romans, upon 
which so much stress is laid by our Bap¬ 
tist brethren in proof of immersion as the 
only baptism. The expression, “ buried 
through baptism,” found in Romans, and 
a similar expression, “ buried in baptism,” 
found in Colossians, are appealed to as 
though they were conclusive of the whole 
discussion. But I think that a close study 
of the passages will show that this is but 
an instance of what some of the old 
writers speak of as “ an interpretation 
that sticks in the bark .” 

That the matter may be before us in 
full, let me quote the entire passage in 
Romans. It embraces the first eleven 


Baptism . 


186 

verses of the sixth chapter, and reads thus 
in the Revised Version : — 

What shall we say then ? Shall we continue in 
sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. We who 
died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein? 
Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized 
into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 
We were buried therefore with him through bap¬ 
tism into death: that like as Christ was raised from 
the dead through the glory of the Father, so we 
also might walk in newness of life. For if we have 
become united with him by the likeness of his 
death, we shall be also by the likeness of his resur¬ 
rection ; knowing this, that our old man was cruci¬ 
fied with him, that the body of sin might be done 
away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to 
sin ; for he that hath died is justified from sin. But 
if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also 
live with him; knowing that Christ being raised 
from the dead dieth no more; death no more hath 
dominion over him. For the death that he died, 
he died unto sin once: but the life that he Jiveth, 
he liveth unto God. Even so reckon ye also your¬ 
selves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in 
Christ Jesus. 


Baptism. 


187 


It is not necessary that I should enter 
into the exposition of every clause in 
this paragraph ; but the key to the main 
thought that runs through it is obviously 
in the second sentence: “ How shall we 
who died to sin , live any longer therein f ” 
All that follows goes to enforce the idea of 
the utter inconsistency of a Christian pro¬ 
fession with a continued living in sin. 
The very purpose for which Christ died 
was to put an end to the dominion of sin. 
Our consecration to him is a consecration 
to all that his death signified. We were 
crucified with him. We have become 
utterly dead and buried to the old life, 
and have been raised from the dead to a 
new life. This did our consecration to 
him (made in our baptism) signify. It is 
therefore utterly preposterous to talk of 
our continuance in sin “ that grace may 
abound,” or for any other reason. 

The whole argument of the apostle 


88 


Baptism. 


rests, not on the mode of the outward 
ordinance, but upon the meaning of. it as 
the beginning of an entirely new life. 

“ Buried into death ” (or “ buried to 
death ”) is a peculiar form of expression 
which seems to be equivalent to our say¬ 
ing, “dead and buried”; that is, dead 
beyond any question. 

As the discourse in Colossians is of 
substantially the same sort as in Romans, 
it is not necessary to repeat it. You will 
find it in the second chapter; but you will 
notice one slight difference in the form of 
words. Whereas in Romans it is “dead 
and buried,” in Colossians it is simply 
“buried”; the burial implying the death. 
Just as often with us — we inquire after 
some old acquaintance, from whom we 
have heard no news of late, and the an¬ 
swer is : “ He was buried three months 
ago.” That tells the whole story as com¬ 
pletely as the fuller form. 


Baptism. 189 

I call your attention in this connection 
to two. other points : — 

(1) That all argument for immersion, 
drawn from the word “buried,” depends 
upon the conception of a literal burial in 
the waters of baptism. But when we bear 
in mind that the death spoken of in both 
of these passages is not literal death, but 
figurative ; that the crucifixion spoken of is 
not literal, but figurative; that the resur- 
rectio 7 i in like manner is not literal, but 
figurative, — is it not a plain violation of 
every law of language to understand the 
burial alone as literal ? 

(2) To what seems to me to be a mani¬ 
fest belittling of the apostle’s argument 
by the interpretation which the Baptist 
theory gives to it. I know full well that 
our Baptist brethren would not willingly 
lower the dignity of anything which the 
apostle says, but I cannot help the feeling 
that an appeal to the acknowledged import 


Baptism. 


190 

of baptism as an act of entire consecra¬ 
tion of soul, body, and spirit to the cruci¬ 
fied yet ever-living Christ would be far 
more impressive than any reference to a 
mere external form. The latter would 
seem to me to be trivial as compared with 
the grandeur and majesty of the former. 
Am I not right ? It was the meaning of 
their baptism and not the mode of it 
which the great apostle would burn into 
the souls of these Christians at Rome and 
at Colossae. 

You have requested in one of your let¬ 
ters that I should make it a little plainer, 
if possible, that the word en , which our 
Baptist brethren lay* so much stress on as 
showing that immersion was implied by it, 
does not prove that fact. I may as well 
do that just now, at the close of this letter. 

Of course I do not deny that en is 
more frequently translated “ in ” than by 
any other word. But as it is translated 


Baptism . 


191 

“by ” about a hundred and twenty times, 
and “ with ” almost exactly the same num¬ 
ber of times, what is very plain is that no 
great stress can be laid upon it. It is also 
translated “through” more than forty 
times. I may give you a few examples 
to indicate the appropriateness of these 
translations. I scatter them along from 
Matthew to Revelation. 

Matt. 5 :34-36 : “ Swear not at all, 
neither by heaven, nor by the earth, 
neither by thy head.” 

Matt. 12:27, 28: “If I, by Beelzebub 
cast out devils, by whom do your children 
cast them out ? But if I cast out devils 
by the Spirit of God,” etc. 

Luke 22:49: “ Shall we smite with 
the sword ? ” 

1 Cor. 16 : 20 : “ Salute one another 
with a holy kiss” ; also, 2 Cor. 13 : 12. 

Eph. 5:18: “Be filled with the 
Spirit.” 


192 


Baptism . 


1 Thess, 4: 16: “ The Lord shall descend 
with a shout, with the voice of the arch¬ 
angel ; and with the trump of God.” 

Rev. 6:8: “Power was given unto 
him to kill with sword, and with hunger, 
and with death.” 

Rev. 12:5: “And she brought forth 
a man child, who was to rule all nations 
with, a rod of iron.” 

It is obvious that no judicious transla¬ 
tor would think of using “ in ” to convey 
the idea in any of these cases to an 
English reader. All the dictionaries ac¬ 
cordingly recognize the fact that this 
preposition is used to express the instru¬ 
ment or means by, with, or through which 
an action is wrought. The Englishman’s 
Greek Concordance, of which I have 
spoken before, will give you no less 
than two hundred and eighty examples of 
the same sort as above in the New 
Testament. 


LETTER XIV. 


WO or three other passages of 
Scripture remain to be consid¬ 
ered to complete your list. The 
first of them is that in Acts 22:16: 
“ Arise and be baptized, and wash away 
thy sins.” This is one of several in 
which we find baptism closely connected 
with this same word, “wash.” Thus the 
Epistle to the Hebrews evidently refers to 
baptism in the expression, “ Having our 
bodies washed with pure water.” Other 
similar allusions will occur to you. That 
these forms of speech show that baptism 
was understood to be a symbol of purity, 
and not of death and resurrection, seems 
too obvious to need argument. And yet, 
as every reader of Baptist literature knows 
full well, the staple arguments on that side 

193 






194 


Baptism. 


are these two: (i) The meaning of the 
word itself. (2) The import of the ordi¬ 
nance as representing Christ’s burial and 
resurrection. The proof of the latter view 
is drawn solely from the figurative language 
found in Romans and Colossians, which 
we have already sufficiently considered. 

But if the ordinance was intended to 
represent Christ’s burial and resurrection, 
— if that is its spiritual significance and 
import,—it seems strange to us that there 
should be no more frequent, and at least 
some plain references to that fact; strange 
that so important a matter should be left 
in such obscurity. Why was it not said 
to Paul, for example : “ Arise and be bap¬ 
tized, and so represent the burial resurrec¬ 
tion of your risen Lord ? ” It would have 
been a very proper occasion for it: there 
never could have been one apparently 
more fitting. The risen Christ, whom 
living he .had rejected, had just appeared 


Baptism. 


195 


to him : and if Christ’s burial and resur¬ 
rection had indeed been the meaning of 
the ordinance to which he was called to 
submit, it would have seemed exceedingly 
natural to bring out that fact distinctly. 
Or if, instead of that, nothing had been 
said, it might have been so understood. 
But we have neither this interpretation 
on the one hand, nor silence on the other; 
but on the contrary we have another and 
different interpretation entirely. “ Be 
baptized ; and thus represent in symbol, 
the cleansing of the soul — by the wash¬ 
ing of regeneration.” 

Why did not Paul, in writing to the Gala¬ 
tians, when it came directly in his way to 
set forth the import of their baptism, say: 
“ As many of you as have been baptized 
to Jesus Christ have thus represented 
Christ’s burial and resurrection ” — in¬ 
stead of telling them that they had thus 
put on Christ? 


196 Baptism. 

Even in the sixth of Romans the direct 
reference is to their death and resurrec¬ 
tion to a new life, while only an indirect 
reference to the burial and resurrection/ 
of Christ is made at all. 

Then comes the passage in Acts 1:5: 
“John indeed baptized with water; but 
ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit 
not many days hence.” All Baptist 
writers, so far as I know, attempt to 
bring even this verse to their aid. But 
the attempt strikes me as a signal failure. 
In baptism we are consecrated to the 
divine service. Water represents the 
purity which this consecration implies. 
But the divine power which really con¬ 
secrates and sanctifies is the Spirit of 
God. John’s cleansing was with water; 
but yours shall be with the Holy Spirit, 
not many days hence. 

Dr. Carson fairly represents all the 
Baptist writers, as far as I know, when he 


Baptism. 


197 


talks about the baptism of the disciples 
“ in wind and fire ”; and when he says 
that “the house was filled with the wind, 
that the disciples might be baptized in it. 
Their baptism consisted in being totally 
surrounded with the wind.” And then, a 
little farther on he says: “ They were 
surrounded by the wind, and covered by 
the fire above. They were, therefore, 
buried in wind and fire.” 1 

And so he vacillates : on one page, find¬ 
ing them baptized “ in wind and fire ”; 
on the next in the wind alone; on the 
next again, in both combined. I am not 
surprised that he should walk thus un¬ 
steadily ; it is more surprising that so 
acute a critic should have found even a 
single foothold for immersion in the pas¬ 
sage to which he refers. For it is not 
said at all that there was any wind what¬ 
ever ; but only a sound, as of a rushing 


1 Carson on Baptism, pp. 109-m. 


198 


Baptism. 


mighty wind. It was not the rushing 
mighty wind that filled the house — but 
the sound. And the tongues^ were not 
fire, but simply had the appearance of 
fire. 

Dr. Carson, however, is not to be dis¬ 
comfited by any little difficulties of this 
sort; for “ The baptism of the Spirit 
must have reference to .immersion, and in 
its literal sense never signifies anything 
else. 1 This is n fixed point; and in the 
examination of the reference in the bap¬ 
tism of the Spirit, nothing can be ad¬ 
mitted inconsistent with this.” And so 
he is even ready to say: “ On the day 
of Pentecost there was a real baptism in 
the emblems of the Spirit. They were 
literally covered with the appearance of 
wind and fire.” 

Here is still another mode of baptism 
— “ in the appearance of wind and fire ! ” 


1 Ibid. p. 105. 


Baptism. 


199 


What can that mean? — “the appear¬ 
ance of wind ? ” — “ baptized in the ap¬ 
pearance of wind ? ” The matter is grow¬ 
ing more and more complicated ! Now if 
the sacred historian had stated that the 
wind filled the house, that would have 
provided for immersion in that — without 
the fire at all. But as it .is only stated 
that the sound filled the house, and that 
the sound was like that of a mighty 
rushing wind, the wind itself is wanting. 
Dr. Carson seems to have caught a 
glimpse of that fact at one moment, and 
hence was reduced to the necessity of 
baptizing the disciples in the appear¬ 
ance of wind (whatever that may be). 
Why did he not happen to catch at the 
real statement, that the sound filled the 
house, and then he could have immersed 
them in that ? But immersion “ in a 
sound” would have been too thin a dis¬ 
guise, and. so he has it “ in the appear- 


200 


Baptism. 


ance of wind and fire!” — a phrase so 
well-sounding and at the same time so 
obscure that even the learned author 
probably never himself detected the ab¬ 
surdity of it. 

Understanding the baptism of the 
Spirit to mean the sanctifying power 
which should, set them apart to their 
great work (as our baptism always rep¬ 
resents sanctification and consecration), 
all difficulties disappear. To my mind 
it is equally a misconception to imagine 
in this baptism of the Spirit any argu¬ 
ment for “pour” or “sprinkle” or “im¬ 
merse.” It is not the mode of baptism, 
but the cleansing and consecration which 
it signifies, that this figurative use of the 
word brings before us. 

There remains, 1 believe, but one pas¬ 
sage that has ever entered into this con¬ 
troversy, to which I have not thus far 
alluded. It is found in i Peter 3:20, 21 : 


Baptism. 


201 


“The longsuffering of Gocl waited in the 
days of Noah, while the ark was pre¬ 
paring, wherein few, that is, eight souls, 
were saved by water; the like figure 
whereunto, even baptism, doth also now 
save us (not the putting away of the filth 
of the flesh, but the answer of a good 
conscience toward God) by the resurrec¬ 
tion of Jesus Christ.” 

The only interpretation by which this 
passage is made to do service to the doc¬ 
trine of immersion is that which makes 
the ark a figure of baptism; and as that 
was surrounded by the waters so are 
we in our immersion, “ the like figure 
whereunto ” making baptism like the ark. 

Various reasons might be suggested 
against this interpretation; but there is 
one which is utterly fatal to it, and so it 
is enough to mention that. The reader of 
the Greek Testament will tell you that the 
words which are translated “the like 


202 


Baptism. 


figure whereunto ” are literally rendered 
“the antitype to which,” and that the 
word translated “ to which ” cannot pos¬ 
sibly find its antecedent in the word trans¬ 
lated “ark”; because the gender of the 
noun is not the same as that of the pro¬ 
noun. The true antecedent is “water” 
and not “ark.” The apostle simply 
alludes to water baptism as a ceremony of 
cleansing, finding its type in the water 
which cleansed the old world, and through 
which Noah and his household were saved ; 
taking care to guard his readers against 
any ritualistic interpretation of his allu¬ 
sion, by saying explicitly that it is not be¬ 
cause the ceremony itself really cleanses 
from the filth of the flesh, but because it 
fulfills the requirement of a good con¬ 
science, in obeying God ; Christ, through 
the power of his resurrection, being our 
only true Saviour. 

You called my attention some time ago 


Baptism . 


203 


to the argument so much relied upon by 
those holding to immersion only, based 
upon the “ localities where baptism is 
spoken of as having occurred.” Why did 
John choose the Jordan unless for immer¬ 
sion ? Why did he baptize at ^Enon, 
because of the abundance of water found 
there, unless it was for the purpose of 
immersion ? (This is not relied upon as 
their chief argument, but as confirmatory 
of that; the chief appeal being to the 
meaning of the word itself.) 

The study of the passage relating to 
^Enon we have already gone through with : 
it will not be necessary to go over that. 
When we consider how imperative must 
have been the demand for an abundant 
supply of water to accommodate the im¬ 
mense throngs that attended John, inde¬ 
pendent of the simple rite of baptism, it 
is easy to see that there is little force in 
the argument which is based upon the 


204 


Baptism. 


water supply. The other needs, even 
admitting immersion, would have been 
many fold greater. 

But the appeal to the places where bap¬ 
tism is spoken of is otherwise unfortu¬ 
nate : for when all of the places are taken 
into the account it will be noticed that in 
these two alone is there any special supply 
of water at all indicated. 

In Jerusalem, at the Pentecost, when 
three thousand were baptized in a single 
day, no special reference is had to any 
body of water where immersion could have 
been performed ; and, as we have already 
seen, there was no such body of water in 
or near Jerusalem, except the pools which 
furnished the drinking water for the city. 

Next comes the case of Philip and the 
eunuch. They were riding through the 
country and came to a certain water. 
The eunuch said : “ See, here is water. 
What doth hinder me to be baptized ? ” 


Baptism . 


205 


Nothing is said of the quantity of it ; it 
was a running stream — such “living 
water” as is always required by the Jewish 
law for their purifyings. There is nothing 
in the account which implies necessarily 
that the baptism was by immersion. 

Paul’s baptism is the next instance 
spoken of. Read the whole account as 
found in the ninth chapter of Acts. Paul 
was in the house of one Judas, at Damas¬ 
cus. Ananias came to him, by divine 
direction ; laid his hands upon him; “and 
immediately there fell from his eyes, as it 
were scales, and he received sight forth¬ 
with, and he arose, and was baptized.” 
Literally, “standing up, he was baptized.” 
That is the whole story; no allusion to his 
leaving the house or returning to it. 
Now, remembering what has been demon¬ 
strated, that the word “ baptized ” had 
been for centuries used by the Jews to ex¬ 
press ceremonial cleansing, whether by 


20 6 


Baptism. 


immersion, pouring, or sprinkling, it is far 
more natural to find here sprinkling than 
immersion. There was plenty of “ living 
water” at Damascus ; it was easy to bring 
it in, and have it applied to the man as he 
stood, and no necessity of supposing him 
to repair to the river for baptism. Cer¬ 
tainly it must be admitted that there is 
here no argument from the “ localities in 
speaking of baptism ” in favor of the 
theory of immersion. 

Then comes the preaching of Peter at 
Caesarea. The Holy Spirit fell on them 
that heard the word. And Peter said: 
“Can any man forbid water, that these 
should not be baptized, as well as we? 
And he commanded them to be baptized in 
the name of the Lord.” Does that sound 
at all like a Baptist baptism ? No allusion 
to their leaving the house of Cornelius, in 
which Peter had preached, nor to their 
return. And the expression, “ Can any 


Baptism. 


20 7 


man forbid water?” sounds very much as 
though the water were to be brought — 
not as though they were to repair to the 
seaside for the ordinance. 

Then we have the baptism of Lydia and 
her household. In this case the meeting 
was by the riverside, “ where prayer was 
wont to be made.” Here Paul preached 
to those who were gathered together. 
Lydia and her household were baptized; 
and she invited the preacher to go and 
abide with them. The location was not 
unfavorable to immersion; but there is no 
indication of her first returning to the 
city to provide herself and her household 
with any change of dress for that purpose 
— no indication of delay, such as all this 
would have required; and the simple, 
natural interpretation would preclude any 
such supposition, when once we have it 
distinctly in mind that the word does not 
require immersion . 


208 


Baptism. 


The baptism of the jailer we have 
already considered. The “location” is 
certainly no argument in favor of immer¬ 
sion in this case. 

In general I think we are justified in 
saying that the argument from the locali¬ 
ties in which the ordinance was adminis¬ 
tered is very decidedly and strongly 
against the theory that it was generally 
by immersion : and well-nigh irresistible 
against the supposition that it was al¬ 
ways so. 

I come now to consider the argument 
which Baptist writers present to show that 
the early Christian Fathers believed, 
and practiced, and taught only immer¬ 
sion, and that, therefore, that is the true 
apostolic mode of baptism. 

As preliminary to the investigation of 
the facts, I wish to say two things : (i) 
That it does not amount to much in any 
case — as all must agree. Whatever men 


Baptism . 


209 


said or did or thought in the second or 
third or fourth century of the Christian 
era has no binding authority upon any 
Protestant Christian. “To the law, and 
to the testimony: if they speak not ac¬ 
cording to this word, it is because there is 
no light in them.” The question is, and 
the only important question, what does the 
law of baptism require, interpreted accord¬ 
ing to the sense in which the lawgiver em¬ 
ployed the words used ? That question 
we have endeavored to answer, and we 
think it has been proved beyond all dis¬ 
pute that the word baptizo was understood 
as a general term, meaning to purify or 
cleanse, and not as a word of mode at all. 

So that, whatever we find that the 
Fathers understood by it makes little 
difference. We are as competent to inter¬ 
pret the Bible in the nineteenth century 
as they of the second or third. 

(2) It will be admitted that the Fathers 


210 


Baptism. 


did not, by any means, agree in their 
teachings upon this subject any more than 
upon many others. This fact alone sets 
aside all appeal to them as any authority. 
They taught and practiced various errors, 
as we and our Baptist brethren would all 
alike maintain. 

But when, in the argument upon this 
subject, they insist that the testimony of 
these early centuries is in their favor, and 
against the view which I have maintained 
in these letters, although I do not regard 
the matter as one of any great conse¬ 
quence whether it is or not, I am com¬ 
pelled by a regard to historic truth to 
deny their claim ; and I think the denial 
can be supported by the most ample 
proof. 

All but one of the passages which I 
shall here quote I have taken from a 
publication of the Bible Union, intended 
to vindicate their rendering of haptizo by 


Baptism. 


211 


“ immerse.” And in all these passages 
they so translate. But whether such a 
translation accords best with the context, 
you will be able to judge for yourself. 

I quote them to show that the writers 
understood baptism to express and sym¬ 
bolize purification and nothing else; and, 
while it is admitted that immersion was 
the general mode in which they baptized, 
these extracts from their writings make 
it evident that it was not because they 
understood the command so to require, 
but because that was their chosen method 
of purification. So some of them im¬ 
mersed three times, the more thoroughly 
to symbolize the purification which they 
understood the ordinance to express. 

I place these quotations in the order of 
time as nearly as I can. The first is from 
Justin Martyr, born about the close of the 
first century. He says: “ Through the 
washing of repentance and the knowledge 


212 


Baptism . 


of God, which has been instituted for the 
benefit of God’s people, we believed and 
we make known that baptism which he 
proclaimed, which alone is able to cleanse 
those who repent. ... For what is the 
benefit of that cleansing [baptism] which 
makes bright the flesh and the body only ? 
Be purified [baptized] as to the soul 
from anger and from covetousness, from 
envy, from hatred; and behold the body 
is pure.” Gr., katharon} 

Few of these quotations will need any 
word of comment to vindicate my trans¬ 
lation of baptizo. This certainly not. 

Hippolytus, about the year a.d. 200, 
after quoting Is. 1:16-19 (“Wash you, 
make you clean . . . though your sins be 
as scarlet, they shall be white as snow”), 
says: “ Thou sawest, beloved, how the 
prophet foretold the clearising of the holy 
baptism. For he who goes down with 


1 Dialogue with a Jew, XIV. 


Baptism . 


2i 3 


faith into the washing of regeneration is 
arrayed against the evil one, and on the 
side of Christ ; he denies the enemy, 
and confesses Christ to be God; he puts 
off bondage, and puts on Sonship; he 
comes up from his baptism bright as 
che sun, flashing forth the rays of right¬ 
eousness.” Certainly this preacher under¬ 
stood his baptism to mean cleansing, not 
burial. 

Cyprian, about a.d. 250, in answer to a 
question that had been proposed to him 
as to the validity of baptism performed 
without immersion during sickness, says : 
“ You inquire what I think of such as 
obtain the grace in time of their sickness 
and infirmity — whether they are to be 
accounted lawful Christians because they 
are not washed all over with the water of 
salvation but have only some of it poured 
upon them. In which matter I would use 
so much modesty and humility as not to 


214 


Baptism. 


prescribe so positively but that every one 
should have the freedom of his own 
thoughts and do as he thinks best. I do, 
according to the best of my humble capa¬ 
city, judge thus: that the divine favors 
are not maimed or weakened, because 
these sick people, when they receive the 
grace of our Lord, have nothing but an 
affusion or sprinkling; when as the Holy 
Scriptures, by the prophet Ezekiel says: 
‘Then will I sprinkle clean water upon 
you, and ye shall be clean.’ And let not 
such, if they recover of their sickness, 
think it needful that they should be bap¬ 
tized again. For in baptism the pollution 
of sin is not washed away as the pollution 
of the body is washed away, in an exter¬ 
nal physical bath : so that there is need 
of nitre and a bath, or a pool, in which the 
body can be washed and purified. Far 
otherwise is the heart of the believer 
washed; far otherwise is the mind of a 


Baptism. 215 

man purified from sin, through the merit 
of faith.” 

There is no hint here that baptism 
represented death and resurrection. It 
was understood to mean cleansing, hence 
immersion in water was preferred, when 
practicable, to represent it more com¬ 
pletely. But each one was to judge for 
himself, understanding always that immer¬ 
sion is not essential. No claim whatever 
is set up in this letter of the bishop that 
the word meant immerse. On the con¬ 
trary, he distinctly recognizes that the 
man who had been sprinkled had been 
baptized, though not in the most approved 
way, as he conceived. You notice that 
he says distinctly that such are “not to 
be baptized again ,” implying that they 
had been already baptized once. No 
Baptist minister of my acquaintance 
would write such a letter as this; or, 
if he did, it would be a virtual surrender 


2 i 6 Baptism . 

of his doctrine that only immersion is 
baptism. 

I quote Cyprian as a fair sample of the 
immersionists of his day; and his view of 
the matter plainly does not at all sustain 
the theory of the practice of our Baptist 
brethren of this day. 

Athanasius, about a.d. 328, says: “ It 
is proper to know that in like manner 
with baptism the fountain of tears cleanses 
man. Wherefore many who have defiled 
the holy baptism by offences have been 
cleansed by tears and declared just. . . . 
Three baptisms , purgative of all sin what¬ 
ever, God has bestowed on the nature of 
men. I mean that of water, and again 
that by the witness of one’s own blood; 
and thirdly, that by tears, in which also 
the harlot was cleansed.” 1 

It takes some boldness to translate 
“ baptisms ” here by “immersions" ; but 


» Question LXXII. 


Baptism. 


217 


Dr. Conant has the requisite nerve ! A 
plainer case to prove that the word means 
“cleansings,” and not “immersions,” it 
would be difficult to conceive. Is a mar¬ 
tyr “ immersed ” in his blood or a harlot 
in her tears? Yet both are here called 
“ baptisms,” showing beyond all question 
that Athanasius did not understand the 
word to mean immersion. The whole 
sentence makes it evident that he did 
understand it to mean cleansing, or 
purification. 

Chrysostom, about a.d. 350, speaking 
of the words of Christ, “ Can ye drink 
of the cup that I shall drink of, and be 
baptized with the baptism that I shall be 
baptized with,” says : “ Here calling his 
cross and death a cup and a baptism : a 
cup, because he drank it with pleasure ; 
a baptism , because by it he cleansed the 
world.” 

The same writer, in his discourse on 


218 


Baptism. 


St. Lucian, the martyr, says: “ Wonder 
not if I call the martyrdom a baptism. 
For here also the Spirit hovers over with 
great fullness, and there is a taking away 
of sins, and a cleansing of the soul won¬ 
derful and strange ; and as the baptized 
are cleansed by water, so are the martyrs 
by their own blood.” 

Basil the Great, a.d. 350, says: “The 
Lord dwells in the flood. A flood is an 
inundation of water, concealing all that 
lies beneath, and cleansing all that was 
before polluted. The grace of baptism he 
calls a flood, so that the soul, washed 
from sins, and cleansed from the old man, 
is henceforth fitted for a habitation of 
God in the spirit.” 1 

Cyril, Archbishop of Alexandria, a.d. 
412. I quote three paragraphs: — 

The first is from his commentary on 
Is. 4:4. Explaining the words, “ spirit 


1 Discourse on Psalm 29: 3. 


Baptism. 


219 


of burning,” he says: “ The spirit of 
burning we call the grace in the holy bap¬ 
tism, produced in us, not without the Spirit. 
For we have been baptized, not with mere 
water; but neither with the ashes of a 
heifer have we been sprinkled, for the 
cleansing of the flesh alone, as says the 
blessed Paul; but with the Holy Spirit, 
and a fire that is divine, and mentally 
discerned, destroying the filth of the vile¬ 
ness in us, and consuming away the pollu¬ 
tion of sin.” 

With this paraphrase may be compared 
the following from Book XII of his treat¬ 
ise on worship : “For we are baptized, 
not in fire perceptible by the senses, but 
in the Holy Spirit, like fire, consuming 
away the pollutions in souls.” 

The same writer, commenting on John 
19: 34, says : “ With a spear they pierce 
his side, and it poured forth blood mixed 
with water ; as though God for us made 


220 


Baptism . 


that which was done an image and a kind 
of firstfruits of the mystic blessing, and 
of the holy baptism : for Christ’s verily, 
and from Christ, is the holy baptism, and 
the virtue of the mystic blessing arose for 
us out of the holy flesh.” 

The allusion, as Dr. Conant admits, is 
to the two elements of atonement and 
cleansing, blood and water, by which we 
are purified in fact and in symbol, and 
which our baptism represents. 

John of Damascus, a.d. 700, on “ Faith 
and Baptism,” says: “ From the begin¬ 
ning the Spirit of God moved upon the 
face of the waters ; and of old the Scrip¬ 
ture testifies to water, that it is cleansing. 
. . . In Noah’s age God deluged the world 
by water. By water every one unclean, 
according to the law, is cleansed, even 
the garments themselves being washed by 
water. . . . And almost all things accord¬ 
ing to the law are cleansed by water. . . . 


Baptism. 


221 


Christ is baptized, not as himself needing 
cleansing, but that he may whelm sin and 
bury the old Adam in the water.” 

This writer, while being a strong im- 
mersionist, nevertheless conceives of the 
ordinance as representing and typifying 
cleansing and nothing else. 

Theophylact, a.d. 1070, commenting on 
John 5 : 1-4, giving the story of Bethesda, 
says : “ For since a baptism was to be 
given, having much efficacy, and quick¬ 
ening souls, God prefigures the baptism 
in the Jewish rites; and gives them also 
water, cleansing away pollutions, not prop¬ 
erly being, but accounted such, — such as 
those from the touching of a dead body, 
or of a leper, or other such like things.” 

Understanding baptism to mean purifi¬ 
cation or ceremonial cleansing by water, 
this sentence is every way intelligible. 
But understanding it to mean immersion, 
it is every way unintelligible. For, as we 


222 


Baptism . 


have seen, there were no immersions re¬ 
quired under the Jewish law to prefigure 
immersion under the Christian Dispen¬ 
sation, but an abundance of ceremonial 
cleansings by water. Moreover a dis^ 
course upon immersion would be entirely 
out of place in a comment upon the heal¬ 
ing at Bethesda, a pool in which there 
was no place for immersion; and still 
more, the cleansings to which he particu¬ 
larly refers were chiefly by sprinkling. 
It ’is evident that it is the use of water 
for ceremonial cleansing under the two 
Dispensations alike to which Theophylact 
makes allusion. 


LETTER XV. 


O the quotations from the Chris¬ 
tian Fathers, given in my last 
letter, I might add many more 
to the same effect. But these are suf¬ 
ficient. I have confined myself to these, 
because, with the exception of Cyprian’s 
letter (which Dr. Conant would very 
naturally not feel inclined to quote, to 
prove that baptizo should always be trans¬ 
lated “ immerse ”), they are all copied 
from the volume to which I have re¬ 
ferred, on “ The meaning and use of 
baptizo ” — published by the Baptist Union. 
The genuineness of the quotations will 
not, therefore, be questioned. 

Whether “ immerse ” is, in any one of 
them, the proper translation, you, or any 
other intelligent reader, — whether ac- 





224 


Baptism . 


quainted with the Greek or not, — will be 
entirely competent to judge. 

In no one of these passages do I find 
any indication that the writers regarded 
baptism as a symbol of death and resur¬ 
rection ; but, on the contrary, as meaning 
something entirely different. Where im¬ 
mersion is alluded to, it is only spoken of, 
not as required by the meaning of the 
word, but as an approved — or the most 
approved—method of ceremonial cleansing 
or purification. “ The baptism of tears ” 
is purification by tears. “ The baptism of 
blood ” is purification by blood. “ The 
baptism of fire,” even, is purification by 
fire. “ The baptism of the Holy Spirit” 
is inward purity through the divine power. 

Whether they were right or wrong in 
these interpretations is not now the ques¬ 
tion. We may not be able, for example, 
to accept their exegesis of “ the baptism 
of fire.” I do not find any evidence that 


Baptism. 


225 


this form of speech is ever applied except 
to a company of persons. It is employed 
only by John the Baptist; and in each 
case it is followed by a sentence that 
seems to be clearly explanatory of it. For 
example, in Luke 3 : 16, 17 : “I, indeed, 

baptize you with water; but one cometh 
after me, mightier than I ; he shall baptize 
you with the Holy Spirit and with fire; 
whose fan is in his hand, and he will 
thoroughly cleanse his floor, and will 
gather the wheat into his garner; but the 
chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable.” 
This seems to me plainly to mean — some 
of you will be saved ; some of you will 
perish. The nation will be purified in both 
ways. Individuals are never spoken of as 
being baptized, or purified by fire. So 
that there is not a shadow of justification 
for any purgatorial interpretation of these 
passages. 

And their interpretation of the Saviour’s 


226 


Baptism. 


words, “ I have a baptism to be baptized 
with,” making it a baptism (or purification) 
by blood, I do not adopt. 

But the quotations show beyond reason¬ 
able dispute that the writers understood 
baptism, not to require immersion, but to 
mean cleansing; and that is the point in¬ 
volved in this discussion. Admitting the 
claim of our Baptist brethren that im¬ 
mersion was generally practiced in the 
early centuries (succeeding the first) does 
not, by any means, make out their case. 
The important question is: On what 
ground did they put it ? Did the Fathers 
maintain that the word baptizo so com¬ 
manded ? If they did, the fact would be 
something to the point; for it might be 
said, with a good deal of plausibility, that 
they probably understood the meaning of 
the particular words of the New Testa¬ 
ment Greek as well, at least, as we. 

Dr. Conant quotes sixty-one passages in 


Baptism. 


227 


his book. They are undoubtedly the 
strongest on the Baptist side that could be 
found. Much learning and labor have been 
expended upon this examination of the 
writings of the Fathers. Many men, on 
both sides of the Atlantic, have labored 
to strengthen the Baptist argument on this 
point: and we have the result, as compiled 
by Dr. Conant. Upon examining these 
sixty-one quotations, I have not found even 
so much as one of them that rests the 
claim for itnmersion on any such ground. 
Several of them refer to Rom. vi and Col. 
ii; but we are as competent to interpret 
these passages as they. If they under¬ 
stood the word itself as requiring immer¬ 
sion, it is strange that they did not say so. 
This is the ground on which our modern 
Baptists place the matter ; and it is mani¬ 
festly the only ground upon which it can 
rest firmly. If the word requires im¬ 
mersion, that settles the question; if it 


228 


Baptism. 


does not, that settles it. The Baptist 
Union regard this as so important that 
they for a long time carried on a separate 
Bible Society on purpose to see to it that 
this word was so translated into all lan¬ 
guages. They annually expended many 
thousands of dollars with a view of giving 
all English readers a Bible with “ immerse ” 
in it instead of “baptize.” And if that 
is the equivalent expression for the original 
baptizo , then it should be so translated. 

But, by the way, if the Latin Fathers 
did really concur in this understanding of 
the subject, why did they, with one 
consent, transfer the Greek word to the 
Latin text instead of translating by 
“immerse”? And if there was even a 
minority of them opposed to the transfer 
and in favor of a translation, why do we 
hear nothing from them ? From our Bap¬ 
tist brethren of these days we have 
been hearing this complaint against our 


Baptism. 


229 


English version perpetually all our life¬ 
time. If the Latin writers understood 
immersion to be a synonym of baptism, 
why did not they adopt it ? For immer¬ 
sion, as we all know, is itself a Latin word, 
and the very one which these brethren are 
quoting the Latin Fathers to prove ought 
to be used in the translation of the New 
Testament Greek. Yet these same Latin 
Fathers themselves, with one consent, re¬ 
ject their own native-born “ immersio ,” 
and transfer the Greek baptismos! It is 
very much to be regretted that they so 
poorly understood the meaning of their 
own language or of the Greek! 

It seems to me very clear, then, that an 
appeal to the Fathers of the first ten cen¬ 
turies subsequent to the Apostolic Age 
is against the Baptist theory and not in 
favor of it. 

These letters are drawing to a close. I 
believe that I have answered every ques- 


230 


Baptism. 


tion that you have propounded. But as 
you desired me to give you m full the 
reasons which led to my change of views 
and of church relations, I ought to say a 
few words more, before I lay down my 
pen, or “sum up ” the case, as the lawyers 
say, in conclusion. 

The one other thing which I wish to 
say is that the views which I have here 
presented — the interpretation which I 
have contended for in these letters — 
seem to me to commend themselves to a 
sound Christian judgment as altogether 
fitting to the obvious nature and design of 
the ordinance of baptism and as harmoniz¬ 
ing with the manifest spirit of our Chris¬ 
tian religion. 

Upon a matter like this I am fully aware 
that it becomes us to speak very discreetly. 
For we must always be careful not to sit 
in judgment upon the wisdom or fitness of 
any divine ordinance or appointment, lest 


Baptism . 231 

we be found among those who accuse God 
foolishly. 

But we cannot help thinking. And when 
it is a question of intrepretation, and when 
philology does not speak plainly and un¬ 
equivocally, we may very properly throw 
these thoughts into the scale. To my 
own mind the philological argument pre¬ 
sented in these pages is clear and unan¬ 
swerable. But to others it may not prove 
so. It may simply leave them unsettled 
and balancing in doubt. Any one who 
occupies that position may very properly 
allow his sense of fitness to lead him to 
reject an interpretation which is not sus¬ 
tained by unanswerable proofs. 

Some years ago, while I was still in the 
Baptist ministry, but after I had ceased to 
preach on baptism and in my own mind 
had ceased to insist on immersion, I met 
a Baptist clergyman, who was an entire 
stranger to my own thoughts, and who said 


232 


Baptism. 


to me : “ Has it never occurred to you that 
the Great Head of the church, in estab¬ 
lishing an ordinance for all time and for all 
latitudes and for all seasons of the year, 
would not be likely to give the church one 
that is so utterly unphysiological as im¬ 
mersion ? Now, I have studied medicine, 
and practiced as a physician fifteen years 
and I know that what I say is true — it is 
contrary to all the laws of life and health 
either for the baptized, or for the admin¬ 
istrator.” 

I was at first quite startled to hear such 
words from a Baptist minister ; but after 
a moment I confessed to him my own 
thoughts, and my own experience. For on 
several occasions, I had been ill for days 
after baptizing a large number of per¬ 
sons in the spring — following a winter of 
special revival. 

Here is an ordinance for the world ; for 
missionaries in all countries; for every 


Baptism. 


233 


convert, immediately upon his conversion ; 
and one would naturally anticipate that it 
would be one to which he could give heed 
at any time of year, or in any locality 
where he might be. But, if our Baptist 
brethren have the right understanding of 
it, it is not. Many, I think most, Baptist 
ministers are obliged, from regard to their 
own life and health, as well as out of re¬ 
gard to the health of some of those con¬ 
verted to Christ, to postpone the baptism 
of those converted in winter until the 
coming of the spring or summer. Minis¬ 
ters in impaired health are not able to at¬ 
tend to it at all. 

I was present in Spurgeon’s church in 
the summer of 1873, on the occasion of 
the baptism of ten or twelve persons. 
The pastor preached every Sabbath. He 
was present, and as well as usual, at the 
time of this baptism. But another minis¬ 
ter performed the ceremony: and I was 


234 


Baptism. 


informed by a member of the church that 
the reason Mr. Spurgeon himself did not 
perform the ceremony was that his health 
would not justify him in doing it. Cer¬ 
tainly his friend was not selected because 
of his special skill: for I have never seen 
immersion more ungracefully executed. 

To me it seems an ungracious task to 
argue in favor of a ceremony of admission 
to a Christian church which the pastor of 
the church must get somebody else to per¬ 
form. 

So it might often happen that, in a large 
district of country, there would be found 
no facilities for immersion. 

In the spring of 1864 I spent a month 
in traveling in Palestine. I was then a 
Baptist, and always expected to remain so. 
I did not travel out of> my way to find 
water for baptism: but, as it was the 
month of March, and as the “latter rain” 
had just ceased, it would be a favorable 


Baptism. 


235 


time for finding suitable conveniences for 
immersion, if such there were. Yet, 
aside from the Mediterranean and the Sea 
of Galilee, I found only one or two places 
where immersion would have been prac¬ 
ticable. It was not oftener than once in 
four days, on the average, that we could 
have baptized the eunuch, in that method, 
had we fallen in with him and had he so 
required. 

And the Jordan was not one of these 
places. As we stood upon the banks of 
the furious, foaming, dashing river, and 
the words, “ What will ye do in the 
swellings thereof ? ” naturally occurred to 
me, I replied inwardly, “ I do not know: 
but certainly not undertake to baptize 
anybody by immersion, unless I wished 
literally to bury him. by baptism into 
death.” I would as soon have thought of 
performing immersion in the Niagara, half 
a mile above the cataract, as at the Fords 


2 36 


Baptism. 


of the Jordan, in the month of March, 
1864. And in many other countries and 
localities it would be far more difficult to 
find facilities for immersion than in Pales¬ 
tine. Even in countries which are re¬ 
garded as well-watered, it is not always 
easy. 

I once had a little experience in this 
matter in my own pastoral work. Two 
persons wished to be baptized by immer¬ 
sion. It was June. A brook of some 
considerable size flowed through the 
town ; but after diligent search for several 
hours we did not find any place within 
three miles where the water was of suffi¬ 
cient depth. We then determined to bor¬ 
row the use of a baptistery, presuming 
that we could do so without difficulty, as 
there were two Baptist churches in the 
city. The authorities of both of them 
readily consented, but neither of the bap¬ 
tisteries was in order and neither of 


Baptism. 


237 


them could be repaired and filled without 
considerable expense and delay. We 
might have secured the use of a private 
bath, but none that was at all suitable in 
size; and, besides, the use of such a bath 
did not seem to us to be in harmony with 
the idea of a public consecration such as 
the ordinance implies. So we gave up the 
search ; and as we were then engaged in 
building a new place of worship, and as 
we believed immersion to be valid bap¬ 
tism, and that this is one of those things 
in which every person should be fully per¬ 
suaded in his own mind, we determined 
upon putting a baptistery into our own 
church. We did so; and after waiting a 
year the parties referred to were im¬ 
mersed. It was true, for several years 
after that, that our Congregational baptis¬ 
tery was the only place in that city of 
twelve thousand where immersion could 
be performed without special preparation, 


238 


Baptism. 


considerable delay, and no little expense. 
There are not a few other communities in 
which this mode of baptism would be 
found equally impracticable and incon 
venient. 

Onerous rites and burdensome ceremo¬ 
nies do not seem at all to accord with the 
genius and spirit of our Christian faith. 
Our understanding <^f baptism makes it a 
ceremony which every disciple may ob¬ 
serve and every pastor may perform — 
suitable for every assembly of believers, in 
every clime, and at every season. 

And as a little bread may represent to 
us the strength which Christ alone can im¬ 
part, and a^ little wine may typify his 
blood shed for us, so may a little water in 
its purity symbolize to us the cleansing 
power of God’s Spirit and grace. 

He who had the water of separation 
sprinkled upon him was touched by that 
water iu only a few spots ; but he was not 


Baptism . 


239 


“cleansed in spots ” ! — the cleansing was 
entire and complete. And those to whom 
the prophetic promise comes, declaring 
“Then will I sprinkle clean water upon 
you, and ye shall be clean/’ are assured 
that they are thus (in symbol) “ cleansed 
from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, 
perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” 

The mode in which the water of bap¬ 
tism shall be applied is not prescribed 
any more than the mode of eating the 
bread in the Lord's Supper; both are left 
to our own freedom. But when, under 
the Dispensation of Moses, cleansing was 
to be symbolized, it was, as we have seen, 
chiefly by sprinkling — never by immer¬ 
sion. And for various reasons we prefer 
this mode of baptism. But we would not 
insist upon it for anybody else. The com¬ 
mand is not to “sprinkle,” nor to “pour 
upon,” nor to “immerse,” but to “bap¬ 
tize.” Were we obliged to employ any 


240 


Baptism. 


other word than this in our English ver¬ 
sion, it would be difficult to decide as be¬ 
tween “cleanse” and “purify.” But our 
translators did wisely in following the ex¬ 
ample of the Latin versionists for fifteen 
hundred years in transferring the word 
for which we had no exact English equiva¬ 
lent and thus giving us a sacred term 
forever consecrated to the sacred ordi¬ 
nance. 

That, in this use of it, it is a general 
term, expressive of symbolic cleansing 
with water, and not a specific term, re¬ 
quiring immersion, I have endeavored to 
show you on various grounds: — 

1. Because such a modification of mean¬ 
ing is common to many of the Greek 
words which are used in the New Testa¬ 
ment and harmonizes with all the well- 
known laws of language. 

2. The command to baptize cannot be 
understood in the classic sense of baptizo> 


Baptism. 


241 


which involves no necessary thought of 
water at all — this being, however, an es* 
sential thing in the Christian ordinance. 

3. The Septuagint use of the word 
proves conclusively that long before the 
time of Christ baptizo had come to express 
to the Jewish nations the general idea of 
water cleansing without reference to the 
mode of its application, and especially, 
and beyond all possible question, when 
the mode was by sprinkling alone. 

4. This meaning best harmonizes with 
all the various cases of the administration 
of the ordinance recorded in the New 
Testament. 

5. It is absolutely demanded by the ex¬ 
igencies of several passages in which bap¬ 
tizo is used in reference to other religious 
purifications. 

6. It harmonizes best with all the regi¬ 
men of the verb and with the various 
prepositions used in connection with it. 


242 


Baptism. 


7. So, also, it best accords with the dif¬ 
ferent allusions to the ordinance, such as 
the “ washing of regeneration,” and es¬ 
pecially with all references to its spiritual 
import. 

8. The figurative use of the term, in 
speaking of the “baptism of the Holy 
Spirit, and of fire,” demands this interpre¬ 
tation. 

9. There is no passage in which the 
word is found that may not be explained 
in harmony with this interpretation, while 
many of them are quite difficult of expla¬ 
nation upon any other. 

10. The teachings of the Christian 
Fathers, even of those who preferred 
immersion, plainly show that they re¬ 
garded the ordinance as one symbolic of 
cleansing and not of burial and resur¬ 
rection. 

11. This interpretation renders it possi¬ 
ble, as the other does not, to fulfill the 


Baptism . 


243 


Great Commission in all countries, in all 
places, and at all times. 

12. It best harmonizes with the whole 
genius and spirit of Christianity, whicn 
is preeminently a religion of heart and 
life, and not of onerous rites and outward 
ceremonies. 

Such is the view to which I was irre¬ 
sistibly led by a reexamination of the 
whole subject, commenced, and for a long 
time prosecuted, for the purpose and with 
the confident expectation in the begin¬ 
ning of triumphantly vindicating my belief 
as a Baptist. 

I have not, during these years of re¬ 
investigation, read a single volume on the 
paedobaptist side, and never in my life 

more than one or two. Perhaps if I had 
1 

I might have made the argument stronger 
still. But I have preferred to reexamine 
the whole subject independently; and 
that reexamination convinced me of my 


244 


Baptism. 


mistake in holding that immersion was 
the only baptism. I could not do other¬ 
wise than yield to the unconquerable 
force of the argument against me. 

Only those who have gone through with 
it can understand how much of a trial it 
is to sunder denominational connections 
after they have been long and pleasantly 
maintained. But to continue them when 
a change of opinion has intervened upon 
the very doctrines that divide is ordinarily 
an occasion of chafing and strife, which 
are more to be deplored than friendly 
separation. And with all due respect for 
old and long-cherished friends one cannot 
honestly continue to profess to believe 
what he does not any longer really be¬ 
lieve. Allegiance to what one sees to be 
true must be supreme. You remember 
the saying of one of old : “ Plato is my 
friend, Socrates is .my friend, but much 
more is the truth my friend.” 


Baptism. 


245 


Parted by differences of sentiment here, 
we wait for the fuller reunion in the home 
above where there will be but one Lord, 
one faith, and the one baptism of light 
and love, whereby we are all baptized by 
one Spirit into the one body of Christ. 




INDEX 


The references are to the page. 


Acts i: 5, explained, 196. 

Acts 22 :16, explained, 193. 

A£non, baptism at, 130. 

“ Apo ” does not mean “ on ac¬ 
count of,” 90. 

“ Apo ” does not mean “ out 
of,” but “ from,” 121. 

Apostolic example, force of, 
117, 118. 

Athanasius calls cleansing by 
tears a baptism, 217. 

Baptism a cleansing, not a 
burial, 43, 193. 

Baptism before eating, 115. 

Baptism by fire, 224, 225. 

Baptism by sprinkling, a plain 
case of, 71-73. 

Baptism from the touch of a 
dead body solely by sprink¬ 
ling, 71-82. 

Baptism in the Bible implies 
water, 40, 41. 

Baptism in the classics has not 
a drop, 35-51. 

Baptism in wind, by Carson, 
196, 197. 

Baptism in the “ appearance of 
wind,” by Carson, 198-200. 

Baptism means consecration, 
I 43 _I 45- 

“ Baptizo” a Greek word, 23. 

“ Baptizo ” not a translation of 
the Hebrew “Tawbal,” 53-59. 

“ Baptizo ” — use of, in the 
Septuagint, 51-59. 

“ Baptizo” — understood to ex¬ 
press the general idea of cere¬ 
monial cleansing by water, 
154 - 

Baptize in case of Naaman 
means to cleanse ceremoni¬ 
ally, 60. 


Baptizing after coming from the 
market, 104. 

“ Baptized for the dead,” 176. 

Baptizing with the fist, 104. 

“ Bapto” — change of meaning 
from “ dip ” to “ dye," 28. 

Bathing not performed by im¬ 
mersion, 92. 

“ Born again ” means properly 
“ born from above,” 183. 

“ Born of water” illustrated by 
Is. 48: 1, 183. 

“ Born of water ” does not refer 
to baptism, 171. 

“ Born of water ” means natu¬ 
ral birth, 172. 

Burial in sand as baptism, 39. 

Careless dictionary makers, 46. 

Carson’s translation of Ecclesi- 
asticus 34: 25, 84. 

“ Ceremonial cleansing by 
water ” is New Testament 
baptism, 22. 

Change from “ immerse ” to 
“ cleanse ceremonially ” a 
natural one, 28. 

' Change of belief upon reexam¬ 
ination, 12. 

2 Chron. 32:3,5, explained, 
. T 39- 

Circumcision, relation of bap¬ 
tism to, 145, 146. 

Classical meaning of “ baptizo” 
cannot meet the demands of 
the commission, 24-26, 32, 33. 

Cleansing solely by sprinkling 
called baptism, 71. 

Cleansing from a dead body ex¬ 
plained, 71. 

Cleansing seven times — a He¬ 
brew idiom, 62. 

Col. 2: 12, expounded, 185. 


247 






248 


Index. 


Conversion of words necessary 
sometimes, 26, 27. 

1 Cor. 5: 8, referred to s 124. 

1 Cor. 10:2, explained, 144. 

Cornelius, baptism of, not by 

immersion, 206. 

2 Cor. 11: 20-30, referred to, 26. 

Couches, baptism of, not by im¬ 
mersion, 114. 

Cyprian recognizes sprinkling 
as valid baptism, although he 
preferred immersion, 213. 

Dipping does not necessarily 
imply water, 41. 

Dip or immerse not used in 
Jewish ordinances, 100. 

“ Divers baptisms ” not one 
immersion, 99. 

Eastern travelers — their expe¬ 
rience in respect to bathing, 
94. 

Ecclesiasticus 34:25, explana¬ 
tion of, 71. 

** Ek,” meaning of, 162, 163. 

“En” translated by “by,” 
“ with,” and “ through,” 190, 
191. 

Eunuch’s baptism, 204. 

Example of Apostles, force of, 
118, 119, 151. 

“ Fathers, Christian,” views of 
the, 208. 

Figurative use of words distinct 
from secondary sense, 126, 
170. 

Figurative use of baptizo in 
classical writers always “ in 
a bad sense,” 35. 

Figurative use in “ Baptism of 
the Holy Spirit,” 199. 

Figurative use of both primary 
and secondary senses, 171. 

Formula of baptism explained, 
143. 

Hebrews 9: 10 cannot mean 
“ divers immersions,” 103. 

Hippocrates quoted, 30. 

Homer, quotation from, 30. 


Holy Spirit, baptism by, 199. 

Immersion does not necessarily 
imply water, 39-49. 

Immersion in Palestine, difficul¬ 
ties of, 234-236. 

Immersion ill-adapted to all sea¬ 
sons and circumstances, 231, 
232. 

Immerse the best word for ren¬ 
dering the classic baptizo, 37. 

“ In the river ” does not prove 
immersion, 120,121. 

“ Into the water ” does not 
prove immersion, 155-157. 

Isaiah 21: 4, explained, 167. 

Isaiah, 48: 1, referred to, 183. 

Jailer, baptism of, 143. 

Jailer’s baptism — how a Baptist 
scholar disposes of it, 143. 

Jerusalem had no facilities for 
immersing three thousand, 141. 

Job 9: 31, Septuagint transla¬ 
tion of, 56. 

John 3: 5, explained, 171. 

John 3 : 8, comment on, 169. 

John 3: 22, 23, explanation of, 
I34-I37- 

John 3: 25-30, explanation of, 
130-134. 

John the Baptist not equivalent 
to “ John the Immerser,” 127. 

Jordan often unsuitable for im¬ 
mersion, 235. 

Josephus on “ baptizing from a 
dead body,” 80. 

Judith’s baptism at “ a spring,” 

68 . 

Judith’s baptizing herself, oc¬ 
casion of, 66. 

Judith’s baptism not in a horse- 
trough! 68. 

Judith — why not sprinkle her¬ 
self in Tier tent ? 68, 69. 

Justin Martyr calls baptism a 
cleansing, 211. 

2 Kings 5: 14, explained, 53. 

Latin Fathers do not use “ im- 
mersio,” but transfer “ bap- 
tismos,” 229. 


OCT 5- 1949 



Index. 


249 


Leviticus 14: 7, explained, 105. 

“ Living water ” always pre¬ 
scribed, 106. 

Localities of baptism considered, 
204. 

Luke 3: 16, explained, 124, 125, 
225. 

Luke 11: 38, explained, 115. 

Luke 12: 50, explained, 166. 

Lydia, baptism of, 207. 

Manner of. Jews’ purifying, 116. 

Malachi 3: 1-3, explained, 127, 
128. 

Mark, 7: 2-4, explained, 103. 

Mark 10: 38, 39, explained, 167. 

Matthew 3: 11, explained, 123. 

Matthew 3: 6, comment on, 164. 

Matthew 20:22, 23, explained, 
167. 

Matthew 28:19, 20, explained, 

17- . 

Meaning of the word itself — 
this alone must settle the 
question, 17, 36. 

Moses — baptism unto, in the 
cloud, and in the sea, 144. 

“ Much water ” explained, 134- 
136. 

Naaman’s cleansing, 56. 

Naaman not commanded to dip 
himself, 63. 

Numbers 19:7-21, explained, 
71-80. 

Origin of these letters, 11-13. 

“Out of the water” does not 
prove immersion, 121, 159. 

1 Peter 3:20, 21, expounded, 
200, 201. 

Picture of early baptism in the 
catacombs, 158. 

Plutarch on bathing, 94. 

Prepositions in connection with 
baptism, 120-122. 

Primary sense of a word and 
secondary, 168, 169. 

“ Purge me with hyssop,” 137. 

Purifier, not immerser, pre¬ 
dicted, 128. 


Purifying of the Jews, manner 
of, 116. 

Question under discussion 
stated, 15, 17, 22. 

b f 

Romans 6: 34, exposition of, 185. 

Septuagint usage of great signi¬ 
ficance, 96-98. 

Smith’s Dictionary of Greek 
and Roman Antiquities on 
“ baths,” 93, 94. 

Son of Sirach a competent wit¬ 
ness, 71, 80. 

Specific mode, or general term— 
which ? 18, 44, 45. 

Spirit, baptism with the, 126. 

Sprinkle does not imply water, 

38 - 

Sprinkle not synonymous with 
baptize, 42, 43, 129, 130. 

Sprinkling under the law pro¬ 
duced thorough cleansing, 
238, 239. 

Tables, baptism of, not by im¬ 
mersion, 114. 

“ Tawbal,” the Hebrew word, 
defined, 53, 54. 

“ Tawbal ” — how translated in 
the Septuagint, 53, 54. 

Three thousand at the Pente¬ 
cost, 140. 

Transfer of the word “ baptize,” 
23 - 

Truth alone of any value, 17. 

“Washing” (baptism) before 
eating, 106. 

Washing, mode of in Eastern 
countries and in Bible lands, 
107. 

Washing “ with the fist,” 108- 
112. 

Water — none in classic baptizo, 
36, 49 , 50 . 

Wilkinson on bathing in Egypt, 
94 - 

“ With water” or “ m water”— 
which ? 123-125. 

Worth our while to study any 
word of Christ, 16. 




























































































































































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